Call for Contributors: Queenship and Counsel in the Early Modern World
Editors: Helen Graham-Matheson (UCL) and Joanne Paul (NCH)
This collection attempts to highlight the ways in which queenship and counsel were negotiated and represented throughout the early modern age (1400-1800). Advice-giving was one of the most prevalent topics in early modern political discourse, but was often limited to the interaction between a male monarch and his male councillors. Queenship and counsel thus posed a potential problem for early modern political theory and practice. Although this topic has been studied with reference to individual queens, no collection has attempted to study the relationship between queenship and counsel in grand perspective. The volume will be submitted to the Queenship and Power series (Palgrave Macmillan) edited by Carole Levin and Charles Beem, with planned publication in early 2017.
We are seeking proposals for submissions from graduate students and scholars in history, literature, philosophy, art history or related fields. Although some longue durée and comparative papers will be accepted, the intention is to produce a collection of chapters each focusing on a single reign, individual or relationship. We welcome submissions which focus on any geographical area within the early modern world, and those from a non-European perspective are especially encouraged. Submissions might focus on any of the four categories of queenship – regnant, regent, dowager and consort – and on both formal and informal varieties of counsel.
Suggested themes include:
- Rhetoric, persuasion and power
- Reason, prudence and emotion
- Legislation and institutionalized councils
- Ceremonials, representation and symbolism
- Diplomacy, intelligence and espionage
- Marriage, family, sexuality and the body
- Religion and philosophy
- Culture and patronage
Chapter proposals of 500 words, accompanied by a short summary of biography and research interests (maximum of 250 words), must be submitted to queenshipandcounsel@gmail.com by 15 January 2015 to be considered. Accepted authors will be notified by March 2015, and final submissions due Dec 2015.
Co-editors:
Helen Graham-Matheson will complete her PhD at University College London in 2014. Her thesis focuses on the political role of female courtier at the mid-Tudor courts. She has published on related topics in Journal of Early Modern Women, The Politics of the Female Household (Brill, 2013) and Book Culture in Provincial Society (Ashgate, 2014).
Joanne Paul is Lecturer in the History of Ideas at New College of the Humanities, London. Her PhD completed at Queen Mary, University of London (2013) explored the discourse of political counsel in Anglophone writing from 1485-1651, and she has published on related topics in Renaissance Quarterly, the Journal of Intellectual History and Political Thought and in her own co-edited volume, Governing Diversities (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011).
