Call for Papers on Tudor Women

Amy Licence and I are now inviting proposals for papers to be included in a multidisciplinary edited volume entitled Envisioning the Tudor Woman: Historical and Modern Representations of Women from the Tudor Era. The deadline for submitting a proposal is December 1, 2015. Papers must be between 8000 – 10,000 words in length and focus on the way women from 1485-1600AD have been depicted in art and culture.

This edited volume aims to bring together scholars from a variety of fields to provide a variety of different perspectives to the way in which Tudor women – famous, infamous, or typical — have been represented both in their own era and in other historical periods. Conceptualizations of how Tudor women looked, felt, and behaved have been used lavishly in literature and media, nearly saturating popular culture and historical fiction. What does history have to say about Tudor women and their role in their culture and society? In what ways were Tudor women portrayed by their contemporaries? How do the Tudor women of fiction align or diverge from historical facts? In what ways do constructions of Tudor women reflect the gender and sociocultural ideologies of those imagining them?

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

  • Tudor femininity in literature and narrative fiction
  • Artistic presentations of Tudor women past and present
  • Gender ideologies and the conceptualization of Tudor women
  • Tudors women from a feminist perspective
  • The roles of Tudor women in their own culture
  • The contemporary fan culture surrounding famous Tudor women
  • Tudor women as a method to promote British tourism
  • Women depicted in Tudor poetry and drama
  • Medical explanations of femininity in Tudor culture
  • Tudor women in twentieth century romance novels

You can contact me with questions or proposals at kyra.cornelius.kramer@gmail.com