Challenging Orthodoxies: The Social and Cultural Worlds of Early Modern Women: Essays Presented to Hilda L. Smith [Hardcover]

Offering a broad and eclectic approach to the experience and activities of early modern women, Challenging Orthodoxies presents new research from a group of leading voices in their respective fields. Each essay confronts some received wisdom, truth or orthodoxy in social and cultural, scientific and intellectual, and political and legal traditions, to demonstrate how women from a range of social classes could challenge the conventional thinking of their time as well as the ways in which they have been traditionally portrayed by scholars. Subjects include women's relationship to guns and gunpowder, the law and legal discourse, religion, public finances, and the new science in early modern Europe, as well as women and indentured servitude in the New World. A testament to the pioneering work of Hilda L. Smith, this collection makes a valuable contribution to scholarship in womens studies, political science, history, religion and literature.Contents: Introduction, Melinda S. Zook. Part I Challenging Cultural and Social Traditions: The boundaries of womanhood in the early modern imaginary, Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks; Women and guns in early modern London, Lois G. Schwoerer; Fiscal citizens: female investors in public finance before the South Sea Bubble, Barbara J. Todd. Part II Challenging Scientific and Intellectual Traditions: The microscopist as voyeur: Margaret Cavendishs critique of experimental philosophy, Lisa T. Sarasohn; Women, Anglican orthodoxy, and the Church in ages of danger, Melinda S. Zook; Emilie Du Ch??telet and the Enlightenments Querelles des femmes, Judith P. Zinsser; Charlotte Lennox and her challenge to the orthodoxies of Shakespeare criticism, Ann Thompson. Part III Challenging Political and Legal Traditions: Daughters of Coke: womens legal discourse in England, 1642-1689, Mihoko Suzuki; Willing to go if they had their clothes: early modern women and indentured servitude, Anna Suranyi; Epilogue - women theorize the powers of the powerless: tl“7