Deanna Shemek is a professor of literature at UC Santa Cruz and co-director of the Isabella d’Este Archive (IDEA). A nationally recognized scholar of early modern Italian literature, she has wide-ranging interests in early modern feminism; humanism and gender culture; early modern literacy and non-canonical producers of writing (women, children, marginalized communities); and a host of other provocative topics. In 2013 she served as a convener for the UCHRI residential working group Digital Isabella d’Este: An Open-Access Online Research Forum. She brings the experience of prior collaborations with musicologists to her role as a conference respondent.