Undergraduate Course: Women in Early Modern Italy 1300-1700 (LLLE07047)
Course Outline
| School | Centre for Open Learning |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course explores women in the social, cultural, religious, political and economic developments of early modern Italy. Focusing on a range of primary sources that highlight the roles of women in Italy at this time, students will consider the ideal and the reality of Renaissance woman, who was chaste, silent, and obedient.
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| Course description |
'The Other Voice' is the title of a current series of translated works by women writers in early modern Italy (c.1300-1700), many of which are available through the university library. The course will introduce students to a number of key texts from the period calling for gender equality and equal education for women, but also to works in other genres, and where appropriate to the works of women artists in different genres. Each week we will explore a theme and the associated sources in order to throw light on the social, cultural, religious, political and economic developments in Italy and more broadly in Europe during this period, and to question the existence of the 'ideal' woman who was chaste, silent, and obedient.
Since the question 'Did women have a Renaissance?' was asked by Joan Kelly in 1977, a stream of research has led to a much clearer and more nuanced understanding of women¿s status in early modern Italy than previous historiography had argued. The course aims to introduce students to the historical background and to examine women's legal and social status, c. 1300-1700, by considering wide-ranging themes, ranging from education, commercial activities, marriage and divorce to childbirth and health. These topics will span a number of key groups across society: ruling consorts, noblewomen, merchants' wives, women in trade and domestic service, nuns, prostitutes and outcasts. The course will also consider the role of women in the religious controversies and wars of sixteenth-century Italy, as well as in performance and art. By analysing the patriarchal society of early modern Italy, changes and continuities in women's status will be highlighted and evaluated. Treatises and other works by women from this period have recently been published (and translated), enabling scholars to analyse how these authors self-fashioned themselves through such texts. It is also possible to compare these identities to the portrayal of women in male-authored works from the same period.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2020/21, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Lifelong Learning - Session 3 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
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Lecture Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
78 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
A 2,000-word essay worth 100% of the total mark.
Students will have the opportunity to complete a formative assessment: an essay plan, on which tutors will provide written and verbal feedback to be fed forward to the summative assessment essay.
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| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- show an understanding of the roles and relations of women and men in early modern Italian society at a time of cultural, political, religious and social change when Italy was widely affected by episodes of crisis and open war;
- demonstrate critical awareness of key contemporary works, including several from ¿The Other Voice¿ series by women writers in early modern Italy (c. 1300-1700), but also male-authored works, such as Baldesar Castiglione¿s The Book of the Courtier;
- recognise the historical context of the history of women in early modern Italy: in European history and in the history of women more broadly.
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Reading List
Caferro, W., 2011. Contesting the Renaissance. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Chapter 3 Gender: Who Was the Renaissance Woman?, pp. 61-97.
Campbell, J., Stampino, M., 2011. In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women's Writing. Toronto; Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.
Chojnacka, M., 2001. Working women of early modern Venice. Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cox, Virginia, 2011. The Prodigious Muse: Women's Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Duni, M., 2007. Under the Devil's Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy. Flore'nce: Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.
Jacobsen Schutte, A., Kuehn, T., Seidel Menchi S. (eds), 2001. Time, Space, and Womens Lives in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press.
Laven, Mary., 2004. Virgins of Venice: Broken Vows and Cloistered Lives in the Renaissance Convent. New York: Penguin Books.
Musacchio, J., 1999. The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy. New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
Shemek, D., 1998. Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy. Durham: Duke University Press.
Strocchia, Sharon, 2009. Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
- Analysis and argument
- Handling source material
- Oral and written communication |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mrs Anthea Coleman-Chan
Tel: (0131 6)51 1589
Email: Anthea.Coleman-Chan@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Kameliya Skerleva
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email: Kameliya.Skerleva@ed.ac.uk |
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