Author: wsg1558wp

Upcoming in-person seminar, Foundling Museum, Saturday 6th December, 2025

We have an upcoming in-person seminar taking place Saturday 6th December, 2025.  In-Person: Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ, Saturday 13.00 for 13:30 – 16:30(GMT).

The papers to be presented are:

Breeze Barrington: ‘Versifying Maid[s] of Honour’: Mary of Modena’s artistic legacy.

Diane Clements: ‘A very anxious and affectionate mother’: dealing with personal indebtedness in Georgian England.

Rhian Jones: ‘For what signifies an absent friend?’ Epistolary friendship between women and men in England, c. 1650-1750.

All members are invited to attend.

WSG at the BSECS 55th Annual conference

Jasmin Bieber has organized this year’s WSG panel for the BSECS 55th Annual Conference “Big and Small” (7-9 January 2026, Oxford). WSG’s panel is on Wednesday 7 January, Session 4 (15:40-17:40). The full programme for the conference is available here: BSECS Annual Conference To register, visit this page: BSECS Conference Registration (Hybrid option available).

WSG session details:

Title: Women Measuring up the World (This will be a Hybrid Session)

Chair: Jasmin Bieber, University of Konstanz

Speakers:

Laura Giuliano, Intimacy and Grandeur: Female Images between Monumental Portraits and Miniatures

Carolyn D Williams, Dwindling into a Wife: Size, Sex and Marriage in Eighteenth-Century English Literature

Charlotte Vallis, ‘…too fat to be in a plot…’ The advantages and disadvantages of size for Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, 1741-1761

Zoe Copeman, Cankerous Femme: The European Mastectomy and the Semiotics of Surgery

WSG Bursary Applications now open for 2025-26

WSG is offering a bursary of £750 to an early career researcher*, independent scholar or PhD student who is a member of the WSG. The bursary is intended to support research in any aspect of women’s studies in the period 1558-1837 for new or continuing interdisciplinary or single-discipline projects.

The deadline for bursary applications is 15 December 2025, and the successful applicant will be announced in January 2026. For further information, and to apply, please download the  application form.

Applications are considered by the WSG committee. The money will normally be paid on presentation of receipts. The successful applicant will be expected to give a paper at a future WSG meeting in person or via Zoom in the 2026-2027 seminar season. The contribution of the WSG bursary should be acknowledged in any resulting publications.

*Early career researcher is ‘an individual who is within eight years of the award of their PhD or within 6 years of their first academic appointment’ (AHRC).

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Recent Bursary Winners (for a full list of winners, visit our bursary page)

  • 2025: Valentina Aparicio, researching Maria Graham’s correspondence for her forthcoming monograph, Challenging Friendships: Scottish Women Travellers in Latin America, 1820–60 (Main Award); and Charlotte Vallis, ‘French diplomatic archives relating to Russian Empresses Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II’ (Travel Award), Patricia Ahern, ‘Enlightenment memories of Mary Queen of Scots’ (Travel Award), and Rachel Bynoth, ‘Anxiety in family letters’ (Travel Award).
  • 2024: Amy Solomons, ‘Eighteenth-century female reading experiences in historic house spaces’.
  • 2023: Eleanor Bird, ‘Margaret Davy, sister-in-law of Humphrey Davy and collector of his works’ (Main Award); and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, ‘Examining three Georgian opera singers: Elizabeth Billington, Anna Selina Storace and Gertrude Mara’ (Travel Award).

Upcoming Zoom seminar, Thursday 6th November, 2025. 

We have an upcoming Zoom seminar on Thursday 6th November, 2025.  ZOOM 18:45 FOR 19.00 – 20.00 (GMT).

The papers to be presented are:

Valerie Schutte: Queen Mary I of England and portrait medals in print.

Conor Byrne: Representations of the executions of British Queens in early modern images.

Yihong Zhu: Women at night: readers, writers, pleasure-seekers, and night-walkers in eighteenth-century London.

All members are invited to attend. The Zoom link will be sent via the members list.

WSG ‘Her Stories’ Reading Group: Upcoming session

Reading for WSG reading group session on 28th October, 7–8pm 2025 (GMT)

Frances Brooke’s The History of Emily Montague (Jasmin Bieber’s suggestion).

Please see the WSG October Newsletter for the Zoom link.

All WSG members are welcome to join this session, co-ordinated and facilitated by Karen Lipsedge.

About the reading:

Jasmin Bieber has kindly prepared a PDF of Brooke’s novel, which will be available to participants. If you cannot manage to read the entire novel, Jasmin recommends prioritising the first half, which takes place in Quebec and introduces intriguing, sensible romance plots. Alternatively, you might read from letter 57 to letter 177, which covers the troubled relationship between the main characters.

How the session will be organised:

Jasmin will begin by sharing why she chose Brooke’s novel and discussing the core themes. As with previous sessions, each participant will then share one thing they found noteworthy about the text.

At this meeting, we will also discuss and plan reading group sessions for December 2025 to October 2026, so please bring your suggestions and diaries.

To participate in ‘Her Stories’:

Contact Karen Lipsedge directly: K.Lipsedge@Kingston.ac.uk