Strategic Imaginations

Imaginations of female rule and the imaginative strategies of women rulers

What is the gender of political power ? What happens to the history of sovereignty when we reconsider it from a gender perspective ?

Political sovereignty has been a major theme in European thought from the very beginning of intellectual reflection on community. Philosophy and political theory, historiography, theology, and literature and the arts have, often in dialogue with one another, sought to represent or recalibrate notions of rule. Yet whatever covenant was imagined, sovereign rule has consistently been figured as a male prerogative

While in-depth studies of historical women rulers have proliferated in the past decades, these have not systematically explored how all women rulers throughout the entirety of European culture have had to operate in a context that could not think power as female – except in grotesque terms.

Strategic Imaginations demonstrates that this constitutive tension can only be brought out by studying women’s political rule in a comparative and longue durée manner. The book offers a collection of essays that brings together studies of female sovereignty from the Polish-Lithuanian to the British Commonwealth, and from the Middle Ages to the genesis of modern democracy. It addresses historical figures and takes stock of the rich yet unsettling imagination of female rule in philosophy, literature and art history. For all the variety of geographical, social, and historical contexts it engages, the book reveals surprising resonances between the strategies women rulers used and the images and practices they adopted in the context of an all-pervasive skepticism toward female rule.

Contributors: Marnix Beyen (Universiteit Antwerpen), Aude Defurne (KU Leuven), Ann-Kathrin Deininger (Universität Bonn), Maha El Hissy (Queen Mary, University of London), Anke Gilleir (KU Leuven), Ayaal Herdam (Université de Bordeaux), Josephine Hoegaerts (University of Helsinki), Elisabeth Krimmer (University of California, Davis), Jasmin Leuchtenberg (Universität Bonn), Joanna Marschner (Historic Royal Palaces London), Virginia McKendry (Royal Roads University), Jaroslaw Pietrzak (Pedagogical University Krakow), Maria Cristina Quintero (Bryn Mawr College), David J. Smallwood (Sciences Po Bordeaux), Beatrijs Vanacker (KU Leuven)

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

Listen to an interview with Anke Gilleir at New Books Network : https://newbooksnetwork.com/strategic-imaginations

"Strategic Imaginations" was edited by Anke Gilleir and Aude Defurne.

Anke Gilleir is professor of German literature and gender theory at the Department of Literary Studies at KU Leuven.

Aude Defurne received her PhD in German literature in 2020 at KU Leuven.

Yes, "Strategic Imaginations" is published Open Access. It is available under a BY-NC-ND license.

Publication of "Strategic Imaginations" was funded by KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
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ON GENDER, SOVEREIGNTY AND IMAGINATION
An Introduction
Anke Gilleir
PART 1: REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE SOVEREIGNTY
CAMILLA AND CANDACIS
Literary Imaginations of Female Sovereignty in German Romances of the Late Twelfth Century
Ann-Kathrin Deininger and Jasmin Leuchtenberg
ROYAL HOUSEWIVES AND FEMALE TYRANTS
Gender and Sovereignty in Works by Benedikte Naubert and Luise Mühlbach Elisabeth Krimmer
OF MAIDENS AND VIRGINS, OR, SPARKING MILITARY ALLIANCE
The Affective Politics of the Pristine Female Body
Maha El Hissy
RELATIONAL AUTHORITY AND FEMALE SOVEREIGNTY
Fanny Burney’s Early Court Journals and Letters
Beatrijs Vanacker
THE SOUND OF SOVEREIGNTY
Royal Vocal Strategies in the Victorian House of Lords Josephine Hoegaerts
PART 2: PLACES AND SPACES OF POWER
THE QUEEN FROM THE SOUTH
Eleanor of Aquitaine as a Political Strategist and Lawmaker Ayaal Herdam and David J. Smallwood
THE SPACES OF FEMALE SOVEREIGNTY IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN
Maria Cristina Quintero
FRENCH ARISTOCRAT AND POLISH QUEEN
Maria Kazimiera d’Arquien Sobieska’s Strategies of Power (1674–1698)
Jarosław Pietrzak
BECOMING BRITISH
The Role of the Hanoverian Queen Consort
Joanna Marschner
TAMING THE SOVEREIGN
Princess Charlotte of Wales and the Rhetoric of Gender Virginia McKendry
DISCOURSES OF SOVEREIGNTY AS AN OBSTACLE TO WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE?
An Essay in Comparative History
Marnix Beyen

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for "Strategic Imaginations" is 10.11116/9789461663504.