Early Modern Women

Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal is the only journal devoted solely to the interdisciplinary and global study of women and gender during the years 1400-1750. Each volume gathers essays on early modern women from every country and region, by scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines, including art history, cultural studies, music, history, languages and literatures, political science, religion, theatre, history of science, and history of philosophy. 

EMWJ was founded in 2006 at the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies of the University of Maryland by Jane Donawerth, Adele Seeff, and Diane Wolfthal. Beginning with volume 2, EMWJ has been copublished with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University, which has overseen the printing and distribution of the journal. The founding editors at the University of Maryland established an award for the best peer-reviewed article in each volume that carries a prize of $1000.

Starting June 2011, with volume 7, and ending December, 2017, with volume 12, EMWJ was edited by Anne J. Cruz, Mary Lindemann, and Mihoko Suzuki at the University of Miami, with the editorial office at the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences Center for the Humanities. The editors intiated the biannual publication of the journal with volume 9 (2014), in October and April.

In February 2013, EMWJ held a conference, Early Modern Women: New Perspectives, to celebrate the publication of volume 7, the first to be published by the editorial team at the University of Miami Center for the Humanities.

In January 2014, the Council of Editors of Learned Journals awarded EMWJ the 2013 Voyager Award, for excellence in journals covering the period 1500–1800.

Times Literary Supplement (TLS)reviewed EMWJ in its October 31, 2014 issue on learned journals.

In October 2014, Diane Wolfthal's "Household Help: Early Modern Portraits of Female Servants" (EMWJ volume 8) was awarded the best article prize for 2013 by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women.

I‌n March 2017, EMWJ held a conference, Expanding Visions: Women in the Medieval and Early Modern World to mark the conclusion of the University of Miami's editorial sponsorship of the journal. 

Starting with volume 13 (2018-19), the editors of EMWJ are Bernadette Andrea (UC Santa Barbara), Julie Campbell (Eastern Illinois University), and Allyson Poska (University of Mary Washington). The new editors can be reached at emwj@umw.edu

EMWJ acknowledges the ongoing support of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and the Sixteenth Century Studies Society and Conference.

For information concerning submissions, click here. 

Submit directly to the Scholastica portal for EMWJ:

Volume 12.2 includes essays by:

• Merry Wiesner-Hanks
• Elisabeth Salter
• Vanessa Glauser
• Rachel Dunn Zhang

Volume 12.2 also includes a cluster on historical fiction, exhibition reviews, and performance reviews calling attention to contemporary cultural productions of works by and about early modern women as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 12.2 (2018)

Volume 12.1 includes essays by:

• Amelia Papworth
• Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez
• Jessica Goethals
• Alison DeSimone

Volume 12.1 also includes a forum on play, games, and performances as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 12.1 (2017)

Volume 11.2 includes essays by:

• María del Carmen García Herrero and Cristina Pérez Galán
• Rachel M. De Smith Roberts
• Nieves Romero-Diaz
• Caroline Castiglione and Suzanne Scanlan

Volume 11.2 also includes an interview on Veronica Franco and Dangerous Beauty, a cluster of website and exhibition reviews calling attention to contemporary cultural productions of works by and about early modern women, as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 11.2 (2016)

Volume 11.1 includes essays by:

• Mary D. Garrard
• Catherine Ferrari
• Sara Nalle
• Katherine Allen

Volume 11.1 also includes a forum on women and early modern science as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 11.1 (2016)

Volume 10.2 includes essays by:

• Jenniger Haraguchi
  
• Joy Wiltenburg
  
• Peter Radford
  
• Rebecca P. Brienen
  

Volume 10.2 also includes a cluster of performance, exhibition, and film reviews, calling attention to contemporary cultural productions of works by and about early modern women as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 10.2 (2016)

EMWJ Vol 10 Prize Announcement

Volume 10.1 includes essays by:

• Amy Froide
  
• Megan J. Fung
  
• Stephanie Pietros
  
• Susan Wiseman
  

Volume 10.1 also includes a forum on entrepreneurial women in honor of Alice Clark as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 10.1 (2015)

EMWJ Vol 10 Prize Announcement

Volume 9.2 includes essays by:

• Katja Pilhuj
• Daniel J. Hanna
• Beverly Marshall van note
• Abby Chandler

Volume 9.2 also includes a cluster of performance and DVD reviews, calling attention to contemporary cultural productions of works by and about early modern women as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 9.2 (2015)

EMWJ Vol 9 Prize Announcement

Volume 9 includes essays by:

• Susan D. Amussen and Allyson M. Poska
• Shannon McHugh
• Satoko Naito

Volume 9.1 also includes a forum on early modern women as patrons, collectors, and curators as well as book reviews.

View the contents for volume 9.1 (2014)

EMWJ Vol 9 Prize Announcement

Volume 8 includes essays by:

• Diane Wolfthal
• Mónica Díaz and Stephanie Kirk
• Elizabeth Rodini
• Tracy Adams and Glenn Rechtschaffen
• Deborah Lesko Baker
• Michelle M. Dowd
• Elizabeth Walters

Volume 8 also includes a forum revisiting Joan Kelly’s “Did Women Have a Renaissance?”, an exhibition review on the women artists of French national collections, three television series reviews (including The Borgias, Isabel, and The Tudors), and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 8 (2013)

Best article award for volume 8

Volume 7 includes essays by:

• Andrea Crow
• Elena García-Martín
• Melinda Gough
• Elizabeth Perry
• Patricia Phillippy
• Martine Van Elk

Volume 7 also includes a forum on early modern transculturalisms/transnationalisms, exhibition reviews (on "Shakespeare's Sisters," Artemisia Gentileschi, and women of the Warring States Period in Japan), and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 7 (2012)

Best article award for volume 7

Volume 6 includes essays by:

• Heather Madar
• Maggie Ellen Ray
• Diana Robin
• Lyndan Warner
• J. L. Wilson

Volume 6 also includes a forum on early modern women and memory, a bibliography of publications in English in early modern women’s studies, the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women 2010 prize for a graduate student conference presentation abstract, and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 6 (2011)

Best article award for volume 6

Volume 5 includes essays by:

• Linda C. Hults
• Elisa Oh
• Naomi McAreavey
• Tara Pedersen
• Anne E. Duggan

Volume 5 also includes a forum on sex and the early modern woman, bibliographies of recent German publications in early modern women studies, two art exhibition reviews (on Judith Leister and Antoinette Bouzonnet Stella), a review of the 2009 Attending to Early Modern Women Conference, and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 5 (2010)

Volume 4 includes essays by:

• Joanne H. Wright
• Peter Matheson
• Holly Hurlburt
• Amber Youell

Volume 4 also includes a forum on early modern women and material culture, bibliographies of recent Italian publications in early modern women studies, an exhibition review on Renaissance art and objects depicting marriage and love, and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 4 (2009)

Volume 3 includes essays by:

• Linda Austern
• Cristina Alfar
• Anne Larsen
• Katja-Altpeter Jones
• Helen Hills
• Sara Read

Volume 3 also includes a forum on the rise of the mercantile economy and early modern women, bibliographies of recent French and Spanish publications in early modern women studies, an exhibition review on the image of women in Old Master works, and book reviews.

View the contents for volume 3 (2008)
PDF of volume 3

Volume 2 includes essays by:

• Christopher Martin
• Grace Fong
• Anne Dunlop
• Katherine R. Larson
• Elizabeth S. Cohen
• Suzanne Cusick

Volume 2 also includes a review of the “Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque” exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, as well as a bibliography of publications in English in Early Modern Women’s Studies from 2004 through 2006.

View the contents for volume 2 (2007)

(Out of print)

This inaugural volume includes book reviews of key new studies in the field as well as essays by:

• Margaret P. Hannay
• Cristelle L. Baskins
• Susan Laningham
• John J. Conley
• Elizabeth Mazzola
• Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

View the contents for volume 1 (2006)
PDF of volume 1

Amelia Papworth