Tag: 16thc

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

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 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.

Reminder: Special Seminar with Merry Wiesner-Hanks February 13, 2025 via Zoom

Zoom starting at 7.00 pm, finishing at 8.00 pm GMT. Waiting room will open at 6.45pm.

Please join us for our special seminar with distinguished Professor Emerita Merry Wiesner-Hanks who will discuss her book Women and the Reformations. She will speak for 30 minutes, leaving 30 minutes for questions.

If you have not already registered for the event, please contact Valerie Schutte.

Call for Papers: Adapting the Tudors: From Novels to Film to Public History

WSG member and historian Valerie Schutte is co-editing an exciting new two-volume collection with Jessica S. Hower and William B. Robison that explores how the Tudor period has been adapted across various media and forms. This timely collection comes as Tudor-themed adaptations continue to captivate audiences, from the National Portrait Gallery’s recent Six Lives exhibition to new screen productions like Firebrand and Shardlake.

The editors welcome submissions examining any aspect of Tudor adaptation, from historical novels and screen adaptations to museum exhibits and heritage sites. The collection aims to investigate how history is adapted for public audiences and what these adaptations reveal about both the Tudor period and the times in which they were created.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Historical novelists and their works, focused on the Tudor period
  • Screen adaptations of Tudor-themed novels
  • Theatrical adaptations
  • Historians who have ventured into historical fiction
  • Museum exhibitions and heritage sites
  • Digital adaptations, including virtual exhibitions and video games

Submission Guidelines:

  • Abstract length: 250-300 words
  • Chapter length: approximately 7,500 words
  • Deadline: Friday, 31 January 2025
  • Full contributions due: early 2026
  • Please include a brief academic CV (max 3 pages)

Submit abstracts to all three co-editors:

This collection promises to be an essential resource for academics, students, and enthusiasts of Tudor history and its contemporary interpretations.

For the complete CFP and further details, please see the full CFP: Adapting the Tudors

Do not miss this opportunity to contribute to this significant collection—remember to submit your abstract by Friday, 31 January 2025.