Women's Studies Group 1558 – 1837 – Women's and gender studies in the early modern period and long eighteenth century

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Two special online WSG events in October

We have two online events this month, and we hope you can join us for one or both of them.

WSG Informal Get Together

Join fellow WSG members online on 22 October at 7pm for an informal opportunity to meet and greet other WSG members. A zoom link will be circulated to members nearer the time. There is no need to prepare anything in particular in advance, but if you want to, you can use this opportunity to share something about your research, ask for input from members on any project you’re involved in, or discuss new avenues. This meeting will be hosted by Michaela Vance.

WSG Her Stories Reading Group

The next WSG Her Stories Reading Group session, will meet on 27th October 2026, 7-8pm (GMT). We will read and discuss ‘The History of Mary Prince’. If you do not have access to a hard copy, you can access a PDF version here: ‘The History of Mary Prince: By Herself’ (1831) There is also an audiobook on YouTube of the full text, and you can access it here .

If you have any questions about our reading group, please do not hesitate to contact K.Lipsedge@Kingston.ac.uk

These events are for WSG members only. We hope you’ll consider joining us, if you haven’t done so already. Fees range from £12–£18 per year and details of how to join are here: Membership – Women’s Studies Group 1558 – 1837

Seminar at the Foundling

All are welcome to our first event of the new seminar programme.

In-Person: Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ, 1.20pm for 2pm start.

Speaker details:

Abigail M. Carr, ‘This poor woman’: the importance of compassion and perception for Wet Nurses of the London Foundling Hospital

Amory S. Zhao, The Automated and the Autonomous: Frances Burney’s Scribulerations

Angela Escott, ‘I swung and walked a great deal upon deck’; women at sea

Peter Radford, A rediscovered, but untitled, anonymous, and old (but undated) engraving of women playing cricket – the search for its ‘meaning’.

Full abstracts are available here: https://womensstudiesgroup.org/seminars

WSG SEMINAR SERIES 2026-27: SCHEDULE

To see the abstracts for each of these papers, please click here.

Saturday 17 October 2026

In Person at the Foundling Museum, 1.30pm for 2pm start (BST or GMT +1)

Abigail M. Carr

‘This poor woman’: the importance of compassion and perception for Wet Nurses of the London Foundling Hospital

Amory S. Zhao

The Automated and the Autonomous: Frances Burney’s Scribulerations

Angela Escott

‘I swung and walked a great deal upon deck’; women at sea

Peter Radford

A rediscovered, but untitled, anonymous, and old (but undated) engraving of women playing cricket – the search for its ‘meaning’

Thursday 12 November

ZOOM 6.45pm for 7pm (GMT)

Sara Read

A Physician’s Wife? Revisiting the Biography of the German Princess Using Digital Genealogy

Valerie Schutte

A Comparison of the Coronation Rings of Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I

Ailsa Maxwell

Women’s Home(work): Creating Sweets and Sausages in Georgian Britain

Saturday 16 January 2027

In Person at the Foundling Museum. 1.45pm for 2pm (GMT)

Luisa Signorelli

Misogyny and Shakespeare’s Eighteenth-Century Women Critics

Dr Jean G-Owen

Poachers in Petticoats: ‘Unwomanly Practices in Rural Britain’

Teresa Jung-Sin Hsie.
The Afterlives of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Eliza Haywood, and the Long Eighteenth Century in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

Thursday 11 February 2027

ZOOM. 6.45pm for 7pm (GMT)

Francesca Saggini

A pen to correct the imbalance. Metaphors and communicative asymmetries in Frances Burney’s ‘A Mastectomy Letter’

Tabitha Kenlon

A Disabling Education: Gender, Knowledge, and Disability in Fanny Burney’s Camilla

Flávia Varella

Familiar Conversations and Historical Learning in Elizabeth Penrose and Elizabeth Helme

Saturday 20 March 2027

In Person at the Foundling Museum. 1.45pm for 2pm (GMT)

Mary Nevin

At the Hearth of Taste, Propriety, and Decorum: Female Consumers and the Eighteenth-Century Chimneypiece

Laura Granda-Mateu

Ladies of Liverpool and their lost collections: natural history knowledge-making in the North West, c. 1768–1837

Eszter Kovácz

Anne Conway and Ancient Wisdom

Thursday 29 April 2027

ZOOM. 6.45pm for 7pm (BST or GMT+1)

Elisabetta Marino

Not Just ‘the Mother of…’: Frances Trollope and the Beginning of Her Literary Career

Laura Giuliano.

Writing Art Across Borders: British Women Travellers, Artistic Identity, and Cultural Comparison in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Adriana Marinelli (Parthenope University of Naples)

Reclaiming Parthenope: Women Travellers and the Neapolitan Myth of the Siren

Call for Papers: WSG 40th Anniversary ‘Afterlives’ Project

On 7 January 2027, it will be exactly 40 years since WSG’s first meeting. We intend to celebrate this milestone anniversary with two major collaborative events on the theme of ‘afterlives’: an online workshop, and a trade book compiled from the workshop contributions.

Our proposed theme, ‘Afterlives’, provides the potential for both expansive and reflective thinking. We could explore not only the representation of women throughout history but also WSG’s role in promoting the study of women over four decades. We’re open to a broad range of interpretations, but papers may wish to consider how women have been forgotten in posterity; the various ways in which they have been posthumously portrayed, vilified, or celebrated; and any progress (or lack thereof) in the exploration of women’s history in the past four decades.

We invite proposals for 10-minute papers. By submitting a proposal to the workshop, you confirm that you will subsequently submit your paper for publication. We will be requesting a 3,000-word mini chapter suitable for a general reader (submission date to be confirmed, probably mid-2027).

There will also be two bursary awards available for participants to conduct further research prior to their chapter submissions (applications open from October 2026 with awards announced January 2027).

Contributions should ideally be for one of the following six categories, which will form the basis of our workshop programme and book structure:

Travelling Women
Royal Women
Women in Art
Women Writers
Scientific Women
Religious Women

These were the most popular categories suggested in the informal expressions of interest we received from members. However, we’re open to receiving proposals on other themes, and may adjust this structure if exciting options materialise!

Please send a draft title and short proposal (maximum 350 words) by 14 August to louise@philipmarksav.co.uk and veschutte@gmail.com. The programme will be finalized by mid-September. Feel free to get in touch with any questions.

NOTE: We’ll also be holding an informal in-person celebration on Saturday 17 April 2027 at the Foundling Museum and potentially a book launch in 2028. Details to be announced nearer the time.

2026 – 2027 Call for papers from the Women’s Studies Group: 1558-1837

The Women’s Studies Group 1558-1837 is a small, informal, multidisciplinary group formed to promote women’s studies in the early modern period and the long eighteenth century. Established in the 1980s, the group has enabled those interested in women’s and gender studies to keep in touch, hear about one another’s research, meetings and publications, and meet regularly to discuss relevant topics. We organize regular meetings and an annual workshop (see membership application form) where members can meet and discuss women’s studies topics. We can offer advice and opportunities to engage in activities that increase opportunities for publication or enhance professional profiles in other ways. WSG is open to men, women, and non-binary people, students, faculty, and independent scholars, all of whom are invited to join the group and give papers.

The group now has two kinds of meetings for seminars:

In-person seminar meetings. At the Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, WC1N 1AZ, UK, on Saturday afternoons. The room opens at 1.00 pm., to give us time to sort out paperwork and technology, but sessions will run from 1.30 – 4.30 pm. So please arrive early if you can.

Postgraduate/unwaged/independent speakers at the in-person events can claim travel expenses (national only).

ZOOM seminar meetings. Thursday evenings, hosted by a WSG committee member. They will run from 19:00 – 20:30 GMT, with the waiting room opening at 18.45 GMT.

Topics can be related to any aspect of women’s studies: not only women writers, but any activity of a woman or women in the period of our concern, or anything that affects or is affected by women in this period, such as the law, religion, etc. Male writers writing about women or male historical figures relevant to the condition of women in this period are also a potential topic. Papers tackling aspects of women’s studies within or alongside the wider histories of gender and sexuality are particularly welcome; so are topics from the early part of our period. We would also welcome how-to presentations for discussion: examples of suitable topics would include, but are not limited to, grant applications, setting up research networks, becoming a curator, co-authorship, using specialised data, and writing about images. Papers should be 20-25 minutes.

Dates of seminar meetings:

Saturday 17 October 2026 In-person, Foundling Museum London 13:00 for 13:30 – 16:30, British Summer Time (GMT +1)

Thursday 12 November 2026 ZOOM 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)

Thursday 17 December 2026 ZOOM 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)

Saturday 16 January 2027 In-person, Foundling Museum London 13:00 for 13:30 – 16:30 (GMT)

Thursday 11 February 2027 ZOOM 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)

Saturday 20 March 2027 In-person, Foundling Museum London 13:00 for 13:30 – 16:30 (GMT)

Thursday 29 April 2027 ZOOM 19:00 – 20:30, (British Summer Time (GMT + 1)

Find out more about us on https://womensstudiesgroup.org

Please reply to 2wsgevents@gmail.com and cdwilliamslyle@aol.com with expressions of interest and draft titles, listing all the seminar sessions when you could present your paper by 31 May 2026. Final titles and abstracts will be expected to follow by the end of June 2026.