Early Modern Women in the Low Countries

Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University of Western Australia. Jennifer Spinks is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester, UK.

Classified as 'Research Essential' by Baker & Taylor YBP Library Services A Yankee Book Peddler US Core Title for 2011 'Early Modern Women in the Low Countries adds a fundamental chapter to the history of women. This is the first time that such an extensive body of historical, literary and artistic sources on early modern women of the Low Countries has been surveyed. The interaction between different methodological approaches provides a stimulating discourse on the way narratives about women have been developed. An analysis stemming from the intertwined fields of museology and heritage studies reveals that modern female visitors to The Netherlands and Belgium are encouraged to feel part of a wider historical continuity. Susan Broomhall and Jennifer Spinks thus not only encounter women of the past as scholars but also as tourists and as women in their bold and innovative exploration of interpretations of the past and women's experiences within it.' Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium '[This] book challenges historians to expand the materials they use to study women of the past, while challenging curators in the heritage sector to be alert to what they say about women in their own domains.' Renaissance Quarterly '... this willingness to approach gender history from a novel perspective has produced a book whose wide-ranging perspective forces historians to think again about how they can use problematic sources to uncover female lives, as well as demanding that curators take note of scholarly trends. This study is a cutting edge inquiry into the two-way dialogue that can exist between academic and tourist contexts to elucidate women’s experiences.' Women's History Review 'This book is not so much about early modern Netherlandish women as it is about representations of them. In a series of discrete essays the authors examine a highly diverse array of sources and how they portray certain types of women in the Low Countries during the

• Introduction; Chapter 1 Writing Elite Women into the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands; Chapter 2 Visualizing Women’s Work in the Textile Trades at the Dawn of the Golden Age; Chapter 3 Memorializing Grief in Familial and National Narratives of Dutch Identity; Chapter 4 Imagining Domesticity in Early Modern Dutch Dolls’ Houses; Chapter 5 The Rembrandt House and the Rubens House: Encountering Early Modern Women through Heritage Sites; Chapter 6 Sources and Settings: The Uses of Place for Tourism, Heritage, and History; Chapter 7 Purchasing the Past: Gender and the Consumption of Heritage; conclusion Conclusion From Yesterday to Tomorrow: Seeing and Hearing Women in the Low Countries;