The following call for papers is for a panel being proposed for the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies / la Société canadienne d’études de la Renaissance (CSRS/SCÉR) to be held in Regina, Saskatchewan May 26 to 28, 2018. Proposals from Canadian as well as international scholars are welcome:

This panel solicits abstracts for papers which look at issues relating to early modern women’s (c.1500-1700) writing and/or reading in relation to the field of the history of the book.  Is there, or should there be, a separate sub-field of “women’s book history”?  Papers might discuss issues in book history that a particular woman writer’s work raises, or whether certain gaps in the scholarship on books as physical objects makes studying women more difficult.  The recent Broadview Introduction to Book History, edited by Michelle Levy and Tom Mole (2017), usefully organizes the field into five chapters: materiality, textuality, printing and reading, intermediality, and remediation.

Papers which discuss early modern women’s participation in any of these categories are welcome, as are those which treat early modern women in relation to scholarship on the history of the book.  Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Victoria Burke at vburke@uottawa.ca by December 15, 2017.