Learned Women from the Low Countries (an

This weekly seminar course explores women’s historical involvement in the learned and literary world of Early Modern Europe. We will study contemporary debates on women’s intellectual capacities and their contributions to the intellectual field, with a specific focus on the Low Countries, as this course is organized as part of the Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professorship of Dutch Studies.

In the past decades, historians from various disciplines have reassessed the contributions of women to early modern intellectual culture. Large-scale recovery projects, dictionaries of women writers, editions and anthologies of their works, and the rise of feminist bibliography have challenged the male-dominated historiographies and canons. The highly urbanized, literate, and cosmopolitan Low Countries proved to be a particularly interesting context, allowing women to participate in public life. By studying key players, crucial concepts and current as well as historical debates, connecting to a series of thematic and source-driven case studies, we will analyze the various ways in which women could leave their mark in the (patriarchal) world of learning, comprising the arts and sciences, as well as religious spheres.

After a general introduction to learned women in the early modern period, we delve deeper into various textual and visual representations of female learnedness. This analysis will be framed through theoretical concepts such as self-fashioning, posture and persona, alongside recent art-historical insights into the role of (authorial) portraits. Focusing on both well-known and lesser-known women, we will gain insights into women’s opportunities, hindrances, and experiences as evident from their works, in the broader social, cultural, political and economic contexts.

During the seminars, we will discuss and analyze primary sources and secondary literature from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including literary history, art history and book history. The program includes working visits to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Butler Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The course is taught in English. All readings will be available in translation.