Project MUSE - Strategic Imaginations
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.
[Skip to main content]
Institutional Login
Please log into
MyMUSE
to save this to your account
Browse
OR
Search:
Advanced Search
Browse
User Settings
MyMUSE Account
Access via Institution
Log In / Sign Up
Contact Support
Strategic Imaginations: Women and the Gender of Sovereignty in European Culture
In this Book
Additional Information
Strategic Imaginations: Women and the Gender of Sovereignty in European Culture
Book
Aude Defurne
Anke Gilleir
2020
Published by:
Leuven University Press
Table of Contents
View Citation
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
summary
Imaginations of female rule and the imaginative strategies of women rulers
What is the gender of political power ? What happens to the history of sovereignty when we reconsider it from a gender perspective ?
Political sovereignty has been a major theme in European thought from the very beginning of intellectual reflection on community. Philosophy and political theory, historiography, theology, and literature and the arts have, often in dialogue with one another, sought to represent or recalibrate notions of rule. Yet whatever covenant was imagined, sovereign rule has consistently been figured as a male prerogative
While in-depth studies of historical women rulers have proliferated in the past decades, these have not systematically explored how
all
women rulers throughout the entirety of European culture have had to operate in a context that could not think power as female – except in grotesque terms.
Strategic Imaginations
demonstrates that this constitutive tension can only be brought out by studying women’s political rule in a comparative and
longue durée
manner. The book offers a collection of essays that brings together studies of female sovereignty from the Polish-Lithuanian to the British Commonwealth, and from the Middle Ages to the genesis of modern democracy. It addresses historical figures and takes stock of the rich yet unsettling imagination of female rule in philosophy, literature and art history. For all the variety of geographical, social, and historical contexts it engages, the book reveals surprising resonances between the strategies women rulers used and the images and practices they adopted in the context of an all-pervasive skepticism toward female rule.
Contributors: Marnix Beyen (Universiteit Antwerpen), Aude Defurne (KU Leuven), Ann-Kathrin Deininger (Universität Bonn), Maha El Hissy (Queen Mary, University of London), Anke Gilleir (KU Leuven), Ayaal Herdam (Université de Bordeaux), Josephine Hoegaerts (University of Helsinki), Elisabeth Krimmer (University of California, Davis), Jasmin Leuchtenberg (Universität Bonn), Joanna Marschner (Historic Royal Palaces London), Virginia McKendry (Royal Roads University), Jaroslaw Pietrzak (Pedagogical University Krakow), Maria Cristina Quintero (Bryn Mawr College), David J. Smallwood (Sciences Po Bordeaux), Beatrijs Vanacker (KU Leuven)
Ebook available in Open Access.
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Listen to an interview with Anke Gilleir at New Books Network :
Table of Contents
View Full Book
Download Full EPUB
Cover
View
Cover
Cover
Cover
Half Title Page
pp. 1-2
View
Half Title Page
Half Title Page
Half Title Page
Title Page
p. 3
View
Title Page
Title Page
Title Page
p. 4
View
Table of Contents
pp. 5-6
View
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
On Gender, Sovereignty and Imagination
Anke Gilleir
pp. 7-26
View
On Gender, Sovereignty and Imagination
On Gender, Sovereignty and Imagination
On Gender, Sovereignty and Imagination
Part 1: Representations of Female Sovereignty
Camilla and Candacis
Ann-Kathrin Deininger, Jasmin Leuchtenberg
pp. 29-60
View
Camilla and Candacis
Camilla and Candacis
Camilla and Candacis
Royal Housewives and Female Tyrants
Elisabeth Krimmer
pp. 61-84
View
Royal Housewives and Female Tyrants
Royal Housewives and Female Tyrants
Royal Housewives and Female Tyrants
Of Maidens and Virgins, Or, Sparking Military Alliance
Maha El Hissy
pp. 85-108
View
Of Maidens and Virgins, Or, Sparking Military Alliance
Of Maidens and Virgins, Or, Sparking Military Alliance
Of Maidens and Virgins, Or, Sparking Military Alliance
Relational Authority and Female Sovereignty
Beatrijs Vanacker
pp. 109-133
View
Relational Authority and Female Sovereignty
Relational Authority and Female Sovereignty
Relational Authority and Female Sovereignty
The Sound of Sovereignty
Josephine Hoegaerts
pp. 135-155
View
The Sound of Sovereignty
The Sound of Sovereignty
The Sound of Sovereignty
Part 2: Places and Spaces of Power
The Queen from the South
Ayaal Herdam, David J. Smallwood
pp. 159-180
View
The Queen from the South
The Queen from the South
The Queen from the South
The Spaces of Female Sovereignty in Early Modern Spain
María Cristina Quintero
pp. 181-200
View
The Spaces of Female Sovereignty in Early Modern Spain
The Spaces of Female Sovereignty in Early Modern Spain
The Spaces of Female Sovereignty in Early Modern Spain
French Aristocrat and Polish Queen
Jarosław Pietrzak
pp. 201-228
View
French Aristocrat and Polish Queen
French Aristocrat and Polish Queen
French Aristocrat and Polish Queen
Becoming British
Joanna Marschner
pp. 229-254
View
Becoming British
Becoming British
Becoming British
Taming the Sovereign
Virginia McKendry
pp. 255-290
View
Taming the Sovereign
Taming the Sovereign
Taming the Sovereign
Discourses of Sovereignty as an Obstacle to Women’S Suffrage?
Marnix Beyen
pp. 291-305
View
Discourses of Sovereignty as an Obstacle to Women’S Suffrage?
Discourses of Sovereignty as an Obstacle to Women’S Suffrage?
Discourses of Sovereignty as an Obstacle to Women’S Suffrage?
About the Authors
pp. 307-309
View
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Authors
Additional Information
ISBN
9789461663504
Related ISBN(s)
9789461663511, 9789462702479
DOI
10.1353/book.80817
MARC Record
OCLC
1196818705
Launched on MUSE
2020-12-14
Language
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND
Project MUSE Mission
Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves.
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
+1 (410) 516-6989
muse@jh.edu
©2026 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries.
Now and Always,
The Trusted Content Your Research Requires
Now and Always, The Trusted Content Your Research Requires
Built on the Johns Hopkins University Campus
Built on the Johns Hopkins University Campus
©2026 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries.