STRONG VOICES,
WEAK HISTORY?



PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE

FRIDAY, MARCH 3

1:00-1:30 REGISTRATION

1:30-1:45 WELCOME. Victoria Kirkham, University of Pennsylvania

1:45-4:45 SESSION I. NATIONAL EXPERIENCES COMPARED

1:45-2:45 Pamela Joseph Benson, Rhode Island College
"National Diversity or European Unity?
The View from England"

Thelma Fenster, Fordham University
"'Today I am a Man': The Complex Humanisms of Christine de Pizan and Isotta Nogarola"

2:45-3:00 COFFEE, TEA, COOKIES

3:00-4:45 Fabio Finotti, Università di Trieste
"The Woman Writer as Renaissance Persona"

Janet Smarr, University of Illinois at Urbana
"A Female Tradition: Women's Dialogue-Writing
in Sixteenth-Century France"

Respondent and discussion moderator: Victoria Kirkham

5:00-7:00 CATERED RECEPTION Rosenwald Gallery, Sixth floor, Van Pelt Library



SATURDAY, MARCH 4

9:30-10:00 COFFEE AND DANISH

10:00-12:30 SESSION II. EARLY CANONS OF WOMEN

Kevin Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania
"Christine de Pizan: Gender and the New Vernacular Canon"

Deanna Shemek, University of California at Santa Cruz
"The Collector's Delight: Lodovico Domenichi's Gallery of Women"

John N. King, Ohio State University
"Thomas Bentley's Monument of Matrons: The Earliest Anthology of English Women's Texts"

Respondent and discussion moderator: Mary Weitzel Gibbons, Independent Scholar

12:30-2:00 LUNCH BREAK

2:00-4:15 SESSION III. RELIGIOUS WRITERS: A SEPARATE CANON?

E. Ann Matter, University of Pennsylvania
"The Canon of Religious Life: Maria Domitilla Galluzzi on the Rule of St. Clare of Assisi"

Armando Maggi, University of Chicago
"Mystical Literature, the Canon, and the Power of Academia"

Elaine Beilin, Framingham State College
"A Woman for All Seasons: The Reinvention of Anne Askew"

Respondent and discussion moderator: Sara S. Poor, Stanford University; Mellon Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

4:15-4:30 COFFEE, TEA, AND REFRESHMENTS

4:30-6:00 SESSION IV. TWO ITALIAN CASE HISTORIES

Virginia Cox, Cambridge University
"Exemplarity and the Canon in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The Case of Vittoria Colonna"

Victoria Kirkham, University of Pennsylvania
"Sappho on the Arno: The Brief Fame of Laura Battiferra"

Respondent and discussion moderator: Diana Robin, University of New Mexico



SUNDAY, MARCH 5

9:00-9:30 COFFEE AND DANISH

9:30-11:30 SESSION V. WOMEN WRITERS IN THEIR PUBLISHED AFTERLIFE

Ann Rosalind Jones, Smith College
"Bad Press: Early and Modern Editors versus Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco"

Stuart Curran, University of Pennsylvania
"Recollecting the Renaissance: Luisa Bergalli's Componimenti Poetici (1726)"

Lina Insana, University of Pennsylvania
"Fascist Appropriations: The Case of Jolanda De Blasi's Le scrittrici italiane (1930)"

Respondent and discussion moderator: Pamela Joseph Benson, Rhode Island College

11:30-1:00
SESSION VI. ROUND TABLE. THE MODERN CREATION OF A NEW CANON

David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
"Designing Companionate Women"

Albert Rabil, Jr., SUNY, College at Old Westbury
"Discovering the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe"

Susanne Woods, Wheaton College
"Issues of Canon Formation for the Brown University Women Writers Project"

Dennis McAuliffe, Georgetown University
"A Bio-bibliographic Handbook of Italian Women Writers 1200-1600"

Georgianna Ziegler, Folger Shakespeare Library
"Early-Modern Women Online"