Other Voices: Listening to Women and People on the Margin in the Early Modern Period

In this paper, we will listen to the voices of early modern people that have often gone unheard. Our focus is on women, but we shall also be attentive to other forms of marginality, as we consider those who stood out against social norms, resisted authority, were persecuted for their religious beliefs, or found themselves living far from the community in which they had grown up.

In each of the four classes, we shall focus on two or three sources, which have been selected for their comparative interest and their qualities as self-narratives. Our discussions will explore the methodological challenges and possibilities presented by this wide array of sources and give the students the skills and the confidence to make their own interpretations of identities revealed by these ‘ego-documents’.  Students will also be directed to a body of supplementary materials, many of which are available through the Chicago / Toronto ‘Other Voice’ series; they will therefore have the opportunity to select their own sources for analysis in the assessed essay.