Creating Women: Notions of Femininity from 1350 to 1700

11-12 November 2005

Sponsored by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria College, University of Toronto

Chair: Olga Pugliese, Director, CRRS, Renaissance Studies, Italian Studies

Ilana Zinguer (Haifa University, Israel) "Le discours médical entre le discours philosophique et le discours identitaire féminin"

Louise Berglund (Orebro University, Sweden) "Feminine and Masculine in the Images of Power. A Study of the Changes in Visual Political Symbolism in Sweden ca. 1350-1600"

Bridgette Sheridan (Brandeis University, NY) "From a Masculinized Femininity to the Subordinate Female: Changing Conceptions of Midwives' Roles in Seventeenth-Century France"

Chair: Jane Couchman, Glendon College, York University

Jean-Philippe Beaulieu (Université de Montréal) "Dans l'ombre de la pucelle d'Orléans: Jeanne d'Arc comme modèle identitaire dans quelques textes polémiques du XVIIe siècle."

Diane Desrosiers-Bonin (Université McGill) "Travestissement de la parole feminine dans l'oeuvre de Suzanne de Nerveze."

Renée-Claude Breitenstein (Université McGill), "Parler de femmes et faire parler des femmes: l'exemple des Femmes illustres ou les harangues héroïques des Scudéry ".

Chair: Prof. Nicholas Terpstra

Mauro Carboni (Università di Bologna) "Capitalizing on Women: Patrician Alliances in Early Modern Bologna"

Sylvia Brown (University of Alberta) "No need for Translation: Quaker Women and Cross-Cultural Contacts in the Seventeenth-Century World"

Lyndan Warner (Saint Mary's University, Halifax, NS) "Creating Women: The Early Modern Stepmother"

Elena Brizio (Indep. Scholar, Siena) "The Role of Women in Their Kin's Economic and Political Life: The Sienese Case from the Late 1300s to the Mid 1400s"

Chair: Lawrin Armstrong, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Jamie Smith (University of Toronto) "Woman as Substitute: The Legal Construction of Women in Fifteenth-Century Genoa."

Dana Wessell (University of Toronto) "Honour and Shame: The Construction of Women's Bodies in Medieval Spanish Law Codes."

Cristina Perissinotto (University of Ottawa) "The Bun and the Oven: Women in Italian Utopias of the Renaissance."

Chair: Kenneth Mills

Patricia Demers (University of Alberta) "Early Modern Englishwomen's Miserere: From Penitence to Expression."

Cristian Berco (Bishop's University, Québec) "The Many Faces of Female Discipline: Gender Control and Subversion in the Life of a Counter-Reformation Spanish Nun."

Sanda Munjic (University of Toronto) "The Shrew Untamed: An Alternative Femininity in María de Zayas."

Chair:Konrad Eisenbichler, Renaissance Studies, Italian Studies, University of Toronto

Lynn Laufenberg (Sweet Briar College, VA) "Adulteresses, Poisoners, and Witches? Female 'Criminality' in Early Renaissance Florence"

Maritere López (California State University, Fresno) "Wife Material: A Courtesan's Self Redefined."

Elizabeth S. Cohen (York University) "Prostitute Voices from Roman Trials, c.1600."

Chair: Germaine Warkentin, English, University of Toronto

Anne Lake Prescott (Barnard College, NY) "Feminine Impressions: Presenting Women Writers in Seventeenth-Century Print."

Brenda Hosington (Université de Montréal) "Notions of Femininity in Paratexts Accompanying Englishwomen's Translations, 1524-1600."

Jane Couchman (Glendon College, York University) "Models for Huguenot Noblewomen in Their Letters."

Chair: Giancarlo Fiorenza, Fine Arts, University of Toronto

Francesco Divenuto (Università degli Studi "Federico II", Naples, Italy) "The Role Queen Amalia of Saxony in the Planning of the Royal Palace of Caserta."

Julia K. Dabbs (University of Minnesota, Morris) "Martyred for Art: The Death-Stories of Women Artists, 1500-1750."

Deanne Williams (York University) "Elizabeth I: Size Matters"