Women’s Private Practices of Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe

This open access book explores knowledge practices by five women from different European contexts. Contributors document, analyze, and discuss how women employed practices of privacy to pursue knowledge that did not necessarily conform with the curriculum prescribed for them. The practices of Jane Lumley in England, Camila Herculiana in Padua, Victorine de Chastenay in Paris, as well as Elisabeth Sophie Marie and Philippine Charlotte in Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, will help us to exemplify the delicate balance between audacity and obedience that women had to employ to be able to explore science, literature, philosophy, theology, and other types of learned activities. Cases range from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, presenting continuities and discontinuities across temporal and geographical lines of the strategies that women used to protect their knowledge production and retain intact their reputations as good Christian daughters, wives, and mothers. Taken together, the essays show how having access to privacy—the ability to regulate access to themselves while studying and learning—was a crucial condition for the success of the knowledge activities these women pursued.

This is an open access book.

References.

Lady Jane Lumley’s Private Education and Its Political Resonances.

The Private, the Public, and the Political in Lady Lumley’s Writings.

Lady Lumley’s The Tragedie of Euripides Called Iphigeneia.

In Conclusion.

References.

Camilla Herculiana (Erculiani): Private Practices of Knowledge Production.

Camilla Herculiana é Gregetta, Lettere di philosophia naturale (1584).

Conclusion.

References.

From Behind the Folding Screen to the Collège de France: Victorine de Chastenay’s Privacy Dynamics for Knowledge in the Making.

Note-Taking and Knowledge Acquisition as Private Practices.

Adapting the Household’s Privacy to Reconcile Writing and Social Obligations.

Privacy in Institutional Spaces.

Conclusion.

References.

“Fait à mes heures de loisir”: Women’s Private Libraries as Spaces of Learning and Knowledge Production.

The Ducal Libraries: Private Collections?.

Elisabeth Sophie Marie and Philippine Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel The Duchesses’ Book Use and Knowledge Production.

Private Knowledge Spaces: Concluding Remarks.

References.

Contingent Privacies: Knowledge Production and Gender Expectations from 1500 to 1800.

Knowledge Production at Home.

Women, Knowledge, and Their Bodies.

References.

Natacha Klein Käfer is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Natália da Silva Perez is Assistant Professor of Popular Culture in Historical Perspective in the School of History, Culture and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.