Women and Transnational Cultural Exchange: 1550–1850

How have women enabled the transfer of culture and ideas from one geographical region to another? Women and Transnational Cultural Exchange responds to that question by surveying women’s role on the global stage from the early modern period and throughout the long eighteenth century. The individual chapters explore women’s transcultural and transnational networks to identify an array of exchanges in artistic, literary, musical, philosophical, political, and scientific fields. As such, this book investigates the concept of transnational exchange by utilizing a diverse range of material written by women in literary texts including novels, pamphlets, poetry, translations, travel writing, and plays; a botanical treatise; commonplace books; family albums; journals; letters; memoirs; songs; and trade catalogs. Some chapters consider how women’s public lives have been “written” in music, portraits and printed images, and their roles in the international exchange of art and material culture.
This book is unrestricted by periodization, geographical region, or subject, providing a wider lens through which to amplify women’s international presence in history and encouraging new ways of exploring their transnational encounters. Indeed, the women studied in this book originate from England, France, the Habsburg territories, Ireland, Russia, and Scotland; their transnational experiences include interactions with England, mainland Europe, Australia, India, Jamaica, and Latin America (especially Chile and Cuba), and even engagement back through time with Classical, Egyptian, and Indian subjects. The expansive approach reveals how women were enmeshed within a range of global narratives and how their exchanges could create bridges across international boundaries and historical divides.