This book integrates women’s history and legal studies within the broader context of modern European history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sixteen contributions from fourteen countries explore the ways in which the law contributes to the social construction of gender. They analyze questions of family law and international law and highlight the politics of gender in the legal professions in a variety of historical, social and national settings, including Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern and Central Europe. Focusing on different legal cultures, they show us the similarities and differences in the ways the law has shaped the contours of women and men’s lives in powerful ways. They also show how women have used legal knowledge to struggle for their equal rights on the national and transnational level. The chapters address the interconnectedness of the history of feminism, legislative reforms, and women’s citizenship, and build a foundation for a comparative vision of women’s legal history in modern Europe.

— Matthew Brown developed this project through his founding of TableTopOpera, a group of scholars and performers committed to performing multimedia projects promoting classical music to general audiences. TableTop's production, a reductionist fantasy based on Ariane et Barbe-bleue, played an adaptation of Paul Dukas's original score while panels of P. Craig Russell's popular graphic novel Ariane and Bluebeard, Op. 26 streaked across the auditorium screen. Brown wrote the score and the show was called "a miracle of collaborative creation" thanks to "all editing decisions made in regard not only to Brown's profound knowledge of the epoch and Russell's passion for the opera but of the demanding virtuosos who would be playing it, for the multimedia skills it would require – and for a strong commitment to the integrity of the original score." Th. Emil Homerin produced the show. This book, based off the performance project, already is being marketed through TableTopOpera. Contributors to the volume include an opera singer and instructor from the Metropolitan Opera's production of Bluebeard's Castle, the celebrated comic and graphic artist P. Craig Russell, and scholars in classics, religion, history, women and gender studies, and rare books. — Although the premier of Ariane et Barbe-bleue is frequently lauded as a landmark in operatic history, there is at present no book devoted solely to its history, structure, reception, and cultural implications. — This book will stand out on our music list and contribute to our reputation for publishing books on multimedia topics by touching on such diverse subjects as opera, comic books, and animated movies. Further, it contributes to our list of significant works on women and gender studies. — Our target audience includes students, scholars, and readers interested in musicology, particularly Paul Dukas, French music, and multimedia opera. Other related interests include histories of print, multimedia, and comic works, philosophical discussion of Plato and mysticism, and French symbolist literature.

"Covers territory from Russia in the east to Germany and Austria in the west, exploring the origins and evolution of modernity in this region"--Provided by the publisher.

Exploring the relationship between gender and law in Europe from the nineteenth century to present, this collection examines the recent feminisation of justice, its historical beginnings and the impact of gendered constructions on jurisprudence. It looks at what influenced the breakthrough of women in the judicial world and what gender factors determine the position of women at the various levels of the legal system. Every chapter in this book addresses these issues either from the point of view of women's legal history, or from that of gendered legal cultures. With contributions from scholars with expertise in the major regions of Europe, this book demonstrates a commitment to a methodological framework that is sensitive to the intersection of gender theory, legal studies and public policy, and that is based on historical methodologies. As such the collection offers a valuable contribution both to women's history research, and the wider development of European legal history.

This social, cultural, and political history of Slavic Muslim women of the Yugoslav region in the first decades of the post-Ottoman era is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues confronting these women. It is based on a study of voluntary associations (philanthropic, cultural, Islamic-traditionalist, and feminist) of the period. It is broadly held that Muslim women were silent and relegated to a purely private space until 1945, when the communist state “unveiled” and “liberated” them from the top down. After systematic archival research in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Austria, Fabio Giomi challenges this view by showing: • How different sectors of the Yugoslav elite through association publications, imagined the role of Muslim women in post-Ottoman times, and how Muslim women took part in the construction or the contestation of these narratives. • How associations employed different means in order to forge a generation of “New Muslim Women” able to cope with the post-Ottoman political and social circumstances. • And how Muslim women used the tools provided by the associations in order to pursue their own projects, aims and agendas. The insights are relevant for today’s challenges facing Muslim women in Europe. The text is illustrated with exceptional photographs.

Since the 1970s West German historiography has been one of the main arenas of international comparative history. It has produced important empirical studies particularly in social history as well as methodological and theoretical reflections on comparative history. During the last twenty years however, this approach has felt pressure from two sources: cultural historical approaches, which stress microhistory and the construction of cultural transfer on the one hand, global history and transnational approaches with emphasis on connected history on the other. This volume introduces the reader to some of the major methodological debates and to recent empirical research of German historians, who do comparative and transnational work.

Recent debates have used the concept of “transnational history” to broaden research on historical subjects that transcend national boundaries and encourage a shift away from official inter-state interactions to institutions, groups, and actors that have been obscured. This approach proves particularly fruitful for the dynamic field of global gender and women’s history. By looking at the restless lives and work of women’s activists in informal border-crossings, ephemeral NGOs, the lower management of established international organizations, and other global networks, this volume reflects the potential of a new perspective that allows for a more adequate analysis of transnational activities. By pointing out cultural hierarchies, the vicissitudes of translation and re-interpretation, and the ambiguity of intercultural exchange, this volume demonstrates the critical potential of transnational history. It allows us to see the limits of universalist and cosmopolitan claims so dear to many historical actors and historians.