Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe: 1500 - 1700

Surveying court life and urban life, warfare, religion, and peace, this book provides a comprehensive history of how gender was experienced in early modern Europe.

Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe shows how definitions of sexuality and gender roles operated and more particularly, how such definitions--and the activities they generated and reflected--articulated concerns inside a given culture. This means that the volume embodies an interdisciplinary approach: literature as well as history, religious studies, economics, and gender studies form the basis of this cultural history of early modern Europe.

There are new approaches to understanding famous figures, such as Elizabeth I, James VI and I and his wife Anna of Denmark; Francis I; St. Teresa of Avila. Other chapters investigate topics such as militarism and court culture, and wider groups, such as urban citizens and noble families. The collection also studies ways in which gender and sexual orientation were represented in literature, as well as examinations of the theoretical issues involved in studying history from the angle of gender.

Jessica Munns is Professor of Literature at the University of Denver. Her previous books include Restoration Politics and Drama: The Plays of Thomas Otway, 1675-1683 (1995), with Gita Rajan she has co-edited A Cultural Studies Reader: History, Theory, Practice (Longman, 1996).

Penny Richards is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Gloucestershire. She has published widely on early modern history and has co-edited with Jessica Munns. The Clothes that Wear Us: Dressing and Transgressing, Essays in Eighteenth-Century Culture (1999).

 

'This is a very clear introduction to the concept of gender, which could be usefully recommended to all undergraduates studying early modern England.'

Cordelia Beattie, European History Quarterly

This is a new collection of essays by leading scholars of the social, political, economic and cultural situation of women and men in early modern Europe. Organized into four sections, Courtly Worlds, Religious Experience, Civic Worlds, and Literature and Gender, this original collection provides a contemporary map with which to understand the past. The essays reflect the current trend towards integrating the historical experience of women and men. They focus on key areas of contemporary interest and importance, and incorporate research and research methods that have evolved over the last twenty years. The collection provides examples of the major approaches - gender studies, family studies, studies of religion and popular culture and brings together studies of significant figures and studies of the everyday - eg: Louise of Savoy, Elizabeth I, women and courts. The essays incorporate all the latest research and themes/topics of current interest - interdisciplinary approach . For those interested in gender history.

Organized into four sections, Courtly Worlds, Religious Experience, Civic Worlds, and Literature and Gender, this original collection provides a contemporary map with which to understand the past. The essays reflect the current trend towards integrating the historical experience of women and men. They focus on key areas of contemporary interest and importance, and incorporate research and research methods that have evolved over the last twenty years.

Department of English

University of DenverSchool of History and Local Studies

Cheltenham and Gloucester College of HE