Portraits and Poses

Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural view on authority construction among early modern female intellectuals

The complex relation between gender and the representation of intellectual authority has deep roots in European history. Portraits and Poses adopts a historical approach to shed new light on this topical subject. It addresses various modes and strategies by which learned women (authors, scientists, jurists, midwifes, painters, and others) sought to negotiate and legitimise their authority at the dawn of modern science in Early Modern and Enlightenment Europe (1600–1800). This volume explores the transnational dimensions of intellectual networks in France, Italy, Britain, the German states and the Low Countries, among others. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from different spheres of professionalisation, it examines both individual and collective constructions of female intellectual authority through word and image. In its innovative combination of an interdisciplinary and transnational approach, this volume contributes to the growing literature on women and intellectual authority in the Early Modern Era and outlines contours for future research.

Contributors: Laura Beck Varela (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Feike Dietz (Utrecht University), Armel Dubois-Nayt (University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin/Paris-Saclay), Nina Geerdink (Utrecht University), Aurélie Griffin (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), Seren Nolan (Durham University), Caroline Paganussi (Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte Naples), Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval (Univesity Paris-Est Créteil), Kelsey Rubin-Detlev (University of Southern California), Belinda Scerri (University of Melbourne), Catriona Seth (University of Oxford), Lien Verpoest (KU Leuven), Vera Viehöver (Université de Liège), Rotraud von Kulessa (Universität Augsburg), Valerie Worth-Stylianou (University of Oxford).

Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Portraying Female Intellectual Authority
An IntroductionBeatrijs Vanacker and Lieke van Deinsen
Part I: Individual and Collective Portraits of Female Intellectual Authority
Chapter 1 ‘A woman of supreme goodness, and a singular talent’: Anna Morandi Manzolini, Artist and Anatomist of Enlightenment Bologna Caroline Paganussi
Chapter 2 Epistolary Relationship and Intellectual Identity in Maria Antonia of Saxony’s Correspondence with Frederick the Great, 1763–1779 Kelsey Rubin-Detlev
Chapter 3 Between Defence and Affirmation: The Discursive Self- Representation of Eighteenth-Century Women Authors in France and Italy Rotraud von Kulessa (translated by Kristen Gehrman)
Chapter 4 The Visual and Textual Portraits of Mme de Genlis: The Gouverneur, Educator, and Author of the Mémoires Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval (translated by Kristen Gehrman)
Chapter 5 (Self-)Portrait of the Woman as (a Reluctant?) Authority Catriona Seth
Part II: Types and Models of Female Intellectual Authority
Chapter 6 Penning the Midwife’s Experience: Professional Skills, Publication, and Female Agency in Early Modern Europe Valerie Worth-Stylianou
Chapter 7 Women’s Strength Made Perfect in Weakness: Paratextual Authority Constructions in Printed Vernacular Religious Literature by Early Modern Dutch Women Writers Nina Geerdink and Feike Dietz
Chapter 8 ‘Instructing herself by fad or fancy’: Depictions and Fictions of Connoisseuses and Femmes Savantes in Eighteenth-Century Paris Belinda Scerri
Chapter 9 Portraits of Female Mentors in Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611) Aurélie Griffin
Chapter 10 Matrona Docta: Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Macaulay in the Guise of the Roman Matrona Seren Nolan
Part III: The Diachronic Dynamics of Female Intellectual Authority
Chapter 11 Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots, as an Intellectual in Seventeenth- Century Collective Biographies Armel Dubois-Nayt
Chapter 12 Women Jurists? Representations of Female Intellectual Authority in Eighteenth-Century Jurisprudence Laura Beck Varela
Chapter 13 ‘Diotime’ and ‘La Muse Belgique’: The Intellectual Mobility and Divergent Legacies of Amalia Gallitzin and Marie-Caroline Murray Lien Verpoest
Chapter 14 ‘It Wasn’t Enough for Me Just to Be a Singer’: (Self-)Representations of the ‘German Prima Donna’ Gertrud Elisabeth Mara Vera Viehöver
About the Authors Plates

Beatrijs Vanacker

Beatrijs Vanacker is assistent professor of French literature and translation history at the Department of Literary Studies at KU Leuven.

Lieke van Deinsen

Lieke van Deinsen is assistant professor of Dutch literature at the Department of Literary Studies at KU Leuven.