Category: WSG News

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).

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

The Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 is pleased to announce the speakers for their seminar series 2025–2026

The Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 is pleased to announce the speakers for their seminar series 2025–26.

The group has two kinds of meeting for seminars.

In-person seminar meetings. These take place at the Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, WC1N 1AZ, UK, on Saturday afternoons. We will be allowed into the room at 1.00 pm, to give us time to sort out paperwork and technology, but sessions will run from 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm. Please arrive between 1.00 pm – 1.30 pm. The Foundling is a wheelchair accessible venue, and directions for getting to the Museum can be found here, including for those who are partially sighted. Seminars are free to WSG members. Non-members are welcome and are kindly requested to pay the Museum entrance fee and make a donation of £2 for refreshments. Those attending the seminars are welcome to look round the museum before or after.

ZOOM seminar meetings. These take place on Thursday evenings and will be hosted by a member of the WSG committee. They run from 7.00 pm – 8.30 pm, with the waiting room opening at 6.45 pm. Please be aware, you must be a member of the WSG to gain access to the Zoom sessions. The links are distributed through our WSG mailing list 24-hours before the event.

Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837, Seminar Schedule 2025–2026

Saturday 4 October 2025            

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

Julia Hamilton:  Anna of Denmark and the origins of the Stuart sequence.

Pilar Botías Dominguez: Cathartic privacy: war, exile and melancholia in Margaret Cavendish’s Sociable Letters.

Gillian Williamson: Elizabeth Inchbald: a life in lodgings.

***

Thursday 6 November 2025           

ZOOM 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT) 

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.

***

Saturday 6 December 2025       

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

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.

***

Thursday 15 January 2026         

ZOOM   19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)

Stephen Spiess: Trans Allegoresis: Margaret Cavendish’s ‘Assaulted and Pursued Chastity’.

Gillian Beattie-Smith: Creating women’s literary identities: the Tour of Scotland.

Vicki Joule: Travelling and performing the self: Delarivier Manley and the ‘Stage’ coach.

Brianna Robertson-Kirkland: The other Mrs Corri: Camilla Corri’s musical legacy in Edinburgh.

***

Saturday 7 February 2026     

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

Esther Villegas de la Torre: Seventeenth-century women scholars: an interdisciplinary, comparative approach.

Nora Rodriguez Loro: The rhetoric of royal panegyrics: Medbourne’s dedication of St Cecily (1666) to Catherine of Braganza.

Sarah Clarke: Catharine Pelzer’s years in Exeter in the 1840s: from child prodigy to adult musician. Clutching at straws.

 ***

Thursday 12 March 2026               

ZOOM   19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)  

Sarah Barthélemy: Spiritual retreats and women in early modern France.

Helena Queirós: Mediated bodies, devotional scripts: intermedial practices in early modern convents.

Laura Giuliano: Lady Anna Miller (1741-1781): a question of connoisseurship.

Teresa Rączka-Jeziorska: A Polish museum in an English garden. Romantic collection of multinational items of Princess Izabella Czartorska née Flemming.

 ***

Thursday March 19 2026       

ZOOM   19:00 – 20:30 (GMT) 

Elisabetta Marino: Mary Shelley and biography, between history and romance.

Ramit Samaddar: Sophia Goldborne in Colonial Bengal: Phebe Gibbes’s Hartly House, Calcutta.

Charlotte Vallis: The role of French Ambassadors at the courts of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II.

Lisa VandenBerghe and Isabelle Lémonon-Waxin: Victorine de Chastenay: a scholar, an archive, a digital edition

For further information including abstracts, see our seminars page, or contact the organiser Carolyn D. Williams, cdwilliamslyle@aol.com. To join the WSG, see our membership page.

WSG Member Organizes Hybrid Conference: “Collective Biographies Across Disciplines and Ages”

WSG Member Organizes July 1st, 2025 Hybrid Conference: “Collective Biographies Across Disciplines and Ages”

The Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 is pleased to announce an upcoming one-day hybrid conference, “Collective Biographies Across Disciplines and Ages,” taking place on 1 July 2025, in person at the Università degli Studi di Cagliari (Faculty of Humanities, Via San Giorgio 12, Aula 6 and Aula Magna) and online via Microsoft Teams. This international event is organized by WSG member Dr. Maria Grazia Dongu, and it brings together an international group of scholars across disciplines.

About the Conference

This conference explores the literary, historical, and artistic dimensions of collective biography, narratives that center shared experience, social connection, and cultural memory. Presenters will consider how collective biographies function as both historical sources and narrative strategies, across genres as varied as Shakespearean drama, Quaker life writing, detective fiction, and eighteenth-century art. Drawing on approaches from literary studies, historiography, and biography theory, the conference reflects on how individual and group identities are shaped through storytelling.

The Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 is proud to support this event, which features presentations by a number of our members and provides the opportunity to strengthen scholarly networks internationally and across disciplines.

Conference Schedule – 1 July 2025

9:30 am – Brief Introduction: On Collective Biographies by Maria Grazia Dongu (Università di Cagliari)

10:00 am – Competing to Tell Lives in Shakespeare’s Richard III by Maria Grazia Dongu (Università di Cagliari)

10:30 am – A Case Study of Early Quaker Biographies by Judith Roads (Independent Scholar)

11:00 am – Indizi tra le righe: l’Irlanda che cambia nelle detective story (Clues Between the Lines: Ireland’s Changing Face in Detective Stories) Luciano Cau (Università di Cagliari)

11:30 am – Break

12:00 pm – Anne of Cleves in Collective Biographies by Valerie Schutte (Independent Scholar)

12:30 pm – The Collective Biographies of 18th-Century Art: Harnessing the Power of Storytelling to Re-Read Martin’s “Lady Elizabeth Murray and Dido Belle” (1779) by Karen Lipsedge (Kingston University)

1:00 pm – Vita collettiva e autorialità: La famiglia Manzoni (Collective Life and Authorship: The Manzoni Family) by Fabio Vasarri (University of Florence)

13:30 pm – Catherine of Aragon, Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII through Chronicles and Shakespeare’s plays by Valeria Steri, Alessandra Carta, and Elena Melis (Università di Cagliari)

The day will conclude with a roundtable discussion among speakers and attendees.

Hybrid Attendance – All Are Welcome

This is a hybrid event, and attendees are warmly invited to join either in person or virtually.
To receive the Microsoft Teams link for online attendance, please contact Dr. Maria Grazia Dongu at dongu@unica.it.

The Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 is proud to support Dr. Maria Grazia Dongu in organizing this exciting interdisciplinary event. We celebrate her leadership and the vibrant international scholarly exchange this conference promises to foster across disciplinary boundaries.

WSG 2025 – 2026 Calendar of Events

Day/Date/Time EventDetails
Saturday 4 October 2025
13:30 – 16:30 (BST) GMT+ 1		In-person seminar 
Foundling Museum,40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ		Julia Hamilton:  Anna of Denmark and the origins of the Stuart sequence.
Pilar Botías Dominguez: Cathartic privacy: war, exile and melancholia in Margaret Cavendish’s Sociable Letters.
Gillian Williamson: Elizabeth Inchbald: a life in lodgings.
28 October 2025
19:00 – 20:00 (GMT)		WSG Reading Group: Her StoriesFrances Brooks’ ‘History of Montague’
Thursday 6 November 2025
19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)		Online seminar via ZoomValerie 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.
Saturday 6 December 2025
13:00 for 13:30 – 16:30 (GMT)		In-person seminar 
Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ		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.
Thursday 15 January 2026
19:00 – 20:30 GMT		Online seminar via ZoomStephen Spiess: Trans Allegoresis: Margaret Cavendish’s ‘Assaulted and Pursued Chastity’.
Gillian Beattie-Smith: Creating women’s literary identities: the Tour of Scotland.
Vicki Joule: Travelling and performing the self: Delarivier Manley and the ‘Stage’ coach.
Brianna Robertson-Kirkland: The other Mrs Corri: Camilla Corri’s musical legacy in Edinburgh.
Saturday 7 February 2026
13:00 for 13:30 – 16:30 (GMT)		In-person seminar 
Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ		Esther Villegas de la Torre: Seventeenth-century women scholars: an interdisciplinary, comparative approach.
Nora Rodriguez Loro: The rhetoric of royal panegyrics: Medbourne’s dedication of St Cecily (1666) to Catherine of Braganza.
Sarah Clarke: Catharine Pelzer’s years in Exeter in the 1840s: from child prodigy to adult musician. Clutching at straws.
Sunday 8 March 2026International Women’s DayDetails to be confirmed. WSG in collaboration with the Foundling Museum.
Thursday 12 March 2026
19:00 – 20:30 (GMT)                		Online seminar via ZoomSarah Barthélemy: Spiritual retreats and women in early modern France.
Helena Queirós: Mediated bodies, devotional scripts: intermedial practices in early modern convents.
Laura Giuliano: Lady Anna Miller (1741-1781): a question of connoisseurship.
Teresa Rączka-Jeziorska: A Polish museum in an English garden. Romantic collection of multinational items of Princess Izabella Czartorska née Flemming.
Thursday 19 March 2026Online seminar via ZoomElisabetta Marino: Mary Shelley and biography, between history and romance.
Ramit Samaddar: Sophia Goldborne in colonial Calcutta: Phebe Gibbes’s Hartly House, Calcutta.
Charlotte Vallis: The role of French Ambassadors at the courts of Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II.
Lisa VandenBerghe and Isabelle Lémonon-Waxin: Victoria de Chastenay: a scholar, an archive, a digital edition.
Saturday 18 April 2026 (GMT)WorkshopAn opportunity to present and discuss your research interests.
Saturday 16 May 2026Summer VisitHam House visit. A NT property, former home of Catherine & Elizabeth Murray.