HIST 354: Amazons and Viragos: Gender and Power in Early Modern Europe (HC)

Diarist and travel writer Celia Fiennes made her first extended journey in 1697, trekking more than 600 miles on horseback through northern England. In the following 15 years, Fiennes explored every county in England, recording observations about everything she encountered.

Written by one of the most scandalous figures in the beau monde and published just prior to the French Revolution, A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople (1789) transported readers to the most exclusive courts of Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

Considered the authority on Spain for nearly two centuries until historiographers labeled them as disreputable, Madame d'Aulnoy's Travels into Spain can now be appreciated for its ironic gaze on realities concealed from male travelers and the author's unabashedly female and often playful voice. Her account includes her reflections on the Spanish royal court.

Whether powerful, well-to-do or impoverished, exiled by force or choice, every woman faced the question of how to reconstruct her life in a new place. These essays focus on women's agency despite the pressures created by political, economic and social dislocation.