Course studies the debates around women, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy and Europe (ca.1400–1700). Framed historically as 'the woman question' (la querelle des femmes), these debates challenged women's nature, capabilities, and intellect, sparking robust response by women poets and philosophers, as well as by male defenders of the female sex. An interdisciplinary approach studying how gendered expectations for Renaissance women and men emerged across lyric poetry, conduct manuals, medical treatises, political pamphlets, paintings, theater, and early opera. We will contextualize early examples of premodern feminism, anti-feminism, misogyny, and prejudice compared to models today.
Department of Romance Studies