These stories highlight women discovering peculiarly European pleasures, like the romantic realities of a gondolier's life on a ride through the Venice canals, the meaning behind rituals like picking olives or learning flamenco, and more.

The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe is a comprehensive and ground-breaking survey of the lives of women in early-modern Europe between 1450 and 1750. Covering a period of dramatic political and cultural change, the book challenges the current contours and chronologies of European history by observing them through the lens of female experience. The collaborative research of this book covers four themes: the affective world; practical knowledge for life; politics and religion; arts, science and humanities. These themes are interwoven through the chapters, which encompass all areas of women’s lives: sexuality, emotions, health and wellbeing, educational attainment, litigation and the practical and leisured application of knowledge, skills and artistry from medicine to theology. The intellectual lives of women, through reading and writing, and their spirituality and engagement with the material world, are also explored. So too is the sheer energy of female work, including farming and manufacture, skilled craft and artwork, theatrical work and scientific enquiry. The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe revises the chronological and ideological parameters of early-modern European history by opening the reader’s eyes to an exciting age of female productivity, social engagement and political activism across European and transatlantic boundaries. It is essential reading for students and researchers of early-modern history, the history of women and gender studies.

Women and Gender in Postwar Europe charts the experiences of women across Europe from 1945 to the present day. Europe at the end of World War II was a sorry testimony to the human condition; awash in corpses, the infrastructure devastated, food and fuel in such short supply. From Soviet Union to the United Kingdom and Ireland the vast majority of citizens on whom survival depended, in the postwar years, were women. This book charts the involvement of women in postwar reconstruction through the Cold War and post Cold-War years with chapters on the economic, social, and political dynamism that characterized Europe from the 1950s onwards, and goes on to look at the woman’s place in a rebuilt Europe that was both more prosperous and as tension-filled as before. The chapters both look at broad trends across both eastern and western Europe; such as the horrific aftermath of World War II, but also present individual case studies that illustrate those broad trends in the historical development of women’s lives and gender roles. The case studies show difference and diversity across Europe whilst also setting the experience of women in a particular country within the broader historical issues and trends, in such topics as work, professionalization, sexuality, consumerism, migration, and activism. The introduction and conclusion provide an overview that integrates the chapters into the more general history of this important period. This will be an essential resource for students of women and gender studies and for post 1945 courses.

“Welcome to the European family!” When East European countries joined the European Union under this banner after 1989, they agreed to the free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons. In this book, Anca Parvulescu analyzes an important niche in this imagined European kinship: the traffic in women, or the circulation of East European women in West Europe in marriage and as domestic servants, nannies, personal attendants, and entertainers. Analyzing film, national policies, and an impressive range of work by theorists from Giorgio Agamben to Judith Butler, she develops a critical lens through which to think about the transnational continuum of “women’s work.” Parvulescu revisits Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of kinship and its rearticulation by second-wave feminists, particularly Gayle Rubin, to show that kinship has traditionally been anchored in the traffic in women. Reading recent cinematic texts that help frame this, she reveals that in contemporary Europe, East European migrant women are exchanged to engage in labor customarily performed by wives within the institution of marriage. Tracing a pattern of what she calls Americanization, Parvulescu argues that these women thereby become responsible for the labor of reproduction. A fascinating cultural study as much about the consequences of the enlargement of the European Union as women’s mobility, The Traffic in Women’s Work questions the foundations of the notion of Europe today.

This book contributes to the debates around the presence and activity of women in politics, as well as the part which language plays in shaping and developing political activity. Footitt argues that, in a world of shifting roots and multiple identities, the stories we tell, the ways in which we understand the relationships between us, and the communities we imagine ourselves belonging to, are of ever-increasing political importance. At the centre of the study are the women from 12 European Union countries who participate in the transnational political site of the European Parliament. Using interviews with female Members of the European Parliament from the late 90s and early 00s, and a close textual study of speeches in the European Parliament, Hilary Footitt argues that women have created a language of politics that transcends nationalities and political parties and contributes to engendering democracy, defining citizenship and imagining the community of Europe. Politics, she argues, is multilingual, and an understanding of the varieties of vocabularies and grammars that are potentially available to us may help us to create a more inclusive and dynamic political process.

Jean is a medical student who’s about to start her final residency rotation in gynecology. But she’d much rather practice surgery than listen to simpering women moan about their problems all day. Plus, this department is headed by the notorious Dr. Karma, renowned throughout the hospital for his stubborn mindset and unorthodox practices. However, in her first week, Jean begins to realize that Dr. Karma’s reputation isn’t fully accurate, and, perhaps, the complexities of women’s stories are worth listening to and respecting. A modern classic of a revolution in women’s medical care, adapted from the bestselling novel by Martin Winckler.

What have a deaf nun, the mother of the first baby born to Europeans in North America, and a condemned heretic to do with one another? They are among the virtuous virgins, marvelous maidens, and fierce feminists of the Middle Ages who trail-blazed paths for women today. Without those first courageous souls who worked in fields dominated by men, women might not have the presence they currently do in professions such as education, the law, and literature. Focusing on women from Western Europe between c. 300 and 1500 CE in the medieval period and richly carpeted with detail, A Medieval Woman’s Companion offers a wealth of information about real medieval women who are now considered vital for understanding the Middle Ages in a full and nuanced way. Short biographies of 20 medieval women illustrate how they have anticipated and shaped current concerns, including access to education; creative emotional outlets such as art, theater, romantic fiction, and music; marriage and marital rights; fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, contraception and gynecology; sex trafficking and sexual violence; the balance of work and family; faith; and disability. Their legacy abides until today in attitudes to contemporary women that have their roots in the medieval period. The final chapter suggests how 20th and 21st century feminist and gender theories can be applied to and complicated by medieval women's lives and writings. Doubly marginalized due to gender and the remoteness of the time period, medieval women’s accomplishments are acknowledged and presented in a way that readers can appreciate and find inspiring. Ideal for high school and college classroom use in courses ranging from history and literature to women's and gender studies, an accompanying website with educational links, images, downloadable curriculum guide, and interactive blog will be made available at the time of publication.