A Gendered History of Emotions in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy

Descripción del proyecto

Esclarecer la perspectiva de género en la historia de las emociones

La historia de las emociones es un campo en auge de investigación histórica que se centra en las emociones humanas. El Renacimiento y la Contrarreforma en Italia no se han investigado adecuadamente desde la perspectiva de la historia de las emociones. En este sentido, el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos WomenThinkingLove presentará, por primera vez, la historia de las emociones del Renacimiento y la Contrarreforma en Italia desde una perspectiva de género teniendo en cuenta el amor, el matrimonio y el adulterio en el sistema. Para ello, el proyecto combinará los estudios literarios, la historia de las ideas y los estudios sobre la mujer.

Objetivo

WomenThinkingLove will provide the first History of Emotions of Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy, with regard to the system love/marriage/adultery, from a gender perspective. As Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy are still under-investigated from the perspective of the History of Emotions, the project will start an urgent research, beginning with an emotional field, love, that was central in the cultural debates of the time. Within the theoretical framework of the History of Emotions, it will combine literary studies, history of ideas and women's studies. Based on the comparison between the love theories of the time and a wide range of literary and non-literary texts containing women's voices and cognitive interactions between men and women (taken from printed and archival sources), the research will challenge the idea of women as passive recipients of men's philosophical elaborations about love, and the stereotypical idea of Counter-Reformation as an un-nuanced era of repression for women's agency. It will contribute to the ongoing re-thinking of the traditional historical periodization, highlighting the continuity in the ideas and practices of love between Renaissance and Counter-Reformation. The research is divided in three phases: a secondment at Florence University and State Archive, during which the fellow will be trained in the new methodologies of History of Emotions and archive research; an outgoing phase at NYU, under the supervision of V. Cox, a world-leading expert of Renaissance and Counter-Reformation women's writing; a return phase at Oslo University, with the guide of U. Falkeid, a prominent scholar whose approach is based exactly on the combination of literary studies and intellectual history, focused on early modern women's thinking. Beyond its scholarly value, the new narrative of women's agency provided by the research will hopefully help to counter the sexist attitude still persisting in contemporary society.