7/31/15
Queens and Amazons in Renaissance Art and History
This CSWS Road Scholars presentation offers 16th- and 17th-century literature and music—together with visual images of paintings, engravings, and sculptures —that portray women forcefully as queens and Amazons. he women in these roles display a confident assumption of equivalence with men, strong agency, and loyal friendship and, at times, passionate love for other noble women. The images of heroic and ruling women we’ve gathered appear in cultural sites —the aristocracy, monarchies, the Catholic Church, convents, and other places. Such material reveals an early modern feminism in the Renaissance and Baroque context that has been eclipsed by a modern movement born of the Enlightenment. Together, the elements contribute to an early, politically nuanced subjectivity for women that we would do well to remember. The imaginary realm of art and literature has its counterpart in the history of European court culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with regard to the public and political power of a startling number of “reallife” queens and women regents in this era of the emerging nation-state; the multimedia entertainments in which women participated, performing in the courts of ruling queens; and the emergence of women writers and artists in connection with such court cultures. Readings and portraits will bring these voices and faces to life. We will give examples from Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal, with special emphasis on Britain and the colonial United States, as well as Spain and New Spain (colonial Mexico).
Presented by Amanda Powell, senior instructor, Department of Romance Languages; and Dianne Dugaw, professor, Department of English.
Time & date: 3 p.m., July 31, 2015 Location: Campbell Community Center, 155 High St, Eugene, OR 97401 Sponsored: by City of Eugene Adult Recreation Program
