MAGDALENA S. SÁNCHEZ is Assistant Professor of History at Gettysburg College and the author of several articles. She is currently writing a book on Habsburg women, power, and politics at the court of Philip III of Spain.
ALAIN SAINT-SAENS is Assistant Professor of History at Oklahoma State University and the author of the forthcoming book In the Service of the Faith: The Art of the Spanish Counter-Reformation.
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The history of women in early modern Spain is a largely untapped field. This book opens the field substantially by examining the position of women in religious, political, literary, and economic life. Drawing on both historical and literary approaches, the contributors challenge the portrait of Spanish women as passive and marginalized, showing that despite forces working to exclude them, women in Golden Age Spain influenced religious life and politics and made vital contributions to economic and cultural life.
The contributors seek to incorporate the study of Spanish women into the current work on literary criticism and on the intersection of private and public spheres. The authors integrate women into subfields of Spanish history and literature, such as Inquisition studies, the Spanish monarchy, Spain's economic and political decline, and Golden Age drama. The essays demonstrate the necessity and value of incorporating women into the study of Golden Age Spain.
