Feminism and Humanism

Did women have a Renaissance?

In 1976, Renaissance scholar Joan Kelly-Gadol posed the question that we will re-engage in this class: did women have a Renaissance? Kelly-Gadol’s reply was no, women’s history traced a different course from men’s. We will examine this history through a variety of literary sources in Italian and French, including some drawn from our own time, and reassess literary historical periodization through the lens of women’s experiences.

Required texts

Christine De Pizan. The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan: New Translations, Criticism. Edited by

Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kevin Brownlee. New

York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. ISBN 978-0393970104

Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies & Courtesans. Edited by Laura Anna Stortoni, translated by Laura Anna Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie. New York: Italica Press, 1997.

Ramie Targoff. Renaissance Woman. The Life of Vittoria Colonna. Extracts (pdf)

Mary Beard. Women and Power. A Manifesto. Extracts (pdf)

Joan Kelly-Gadol, "Did women have a Renaissance?" (pdf)

Tillie Olson. Silences. extracts (pdf)

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Women in the Renaissance

Did women have a Renaissance?