HIST 305 | Women and Gender in Pre-Modern Europe

This course examines the construction of gender in European contexts from Late Antiquity through the medieval and early modern period, addressing historical continuity and change in understandings of femininities, masculinities, and gender nonconformity, as well as in related ideas about sexuality, marriage, family, and romantic love. Students gain an understanding of how gender intersected with social, economic, political, educational, and religious structures in premodern Europe, and consider the merits of various historical approaches to gender. Special topics to be considered include: gendered concerns with virginity and celibacy; marriage and domestic life; reproductive health; the location of LGBTQI+ identities in premodernity; courtly love and its paradoxes; gender and labor in preindustrial economies; and the gendering of educational institutions.