{"id":6,"date":"2014-01-29T15:07:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/consideringwomen\/?page_id=6"},"modified":"2014-12-29T07:47:12","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T12:47:12","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/consideringwomen\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April of 2015, the Rubenianum in Antwerp will host a two-day conference entitled \u201cConsidering Women in the Early Modern Low Countries.\u201d This interdisciplinary event will bring together twenty-six international scholars to present their current research and to develop new approaches to the study of women and gender in the Low Countries from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.<\/p>\n

Women were fundamental actors in early modern Low Countries society, not only shaping the domestic sphere but also playing major roles in the dynamic environment of economic, artistic, and cultural exchange of both the Catholic Southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium and Luxembourg) and the Protestant Northern Netherlands (the modern-day Netherlands, founded during the Dutch revolt at the end of the sixteenth century). The Habsburg territories were governed by a string of women rulers, from Margaret of Austria (1480 – 1530) and Mary of Hungary (1505 – 1558) to the archduchess Isabella of Spain (1566 – 1633). More ordinary Netherlandish women ran businesses, pursued careers as painters and writers, joined religious communities, helped steer the course of debates between Protestants and Catholics, and patronized the arts. The wealthier among them had their portraits painted by the most famous artists of their time \u2013 Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt \u2013 while women of lesser means might find themselves in difficult situations, eking out a living in the \u201cshadow\u201d market for untaxed goods or imprisoned for committing crimes. At the same time, evolving traditions of the visual representation of women both reflected and determined attitudes towards gender. Understanding women\u2019s roles in Netherlandish society and the formative part played by visual culture in defining these roles is critical for gaining a fuller picture of early modern Flemish and Dutch culture; yet despite remarkably rich archival and material resources, this field remains in many ways undeveloped.<\/p>\n

The conference \u201cConsidering Women in the Early Modern Low Countries\u201d represents a major step towards redressing this problem. It will be the first conference to focus on historical Netherlandish women in both the North and the South, and the program\u2019s structure invites participants and attendees to make comparisons across the political and religious border. The conference is highly interdisciplinary: the speakers comprise eight art historians, seven social historians, and three literary scholars, and our panel chairs likewise come from diverse academic backgrounds. Subthemes that will be addressed include:<\/p>\n