Time, Space, and Women's Lives in Early Modern Europe

Book excerpt: The collection is an outgrowth of an October 1997 conference in Italy in which some 30 Italian, French, German, Austrian, and US scholars addressed problems associated with time and space in women's lives in early modern Europe. The organizers conceived their agenda in terms of the female life cycle, from birth to old age and death, and the social and physical spaces where women lived and influenced their communities and families. The 16 papers address both theoretical issues in the historical study of women and also specific relations between the sexes and the construction of "femaleness" and "maleness." The women under discussion fall into a variety of situations: from noblewomen of Florence, Venice, Rome, and England to women who took religious vows and members of the Salzburg bourgeoisie. c. Book News Inc.