Women, Enlightenment and Catholicism A Transnational Biographical History

"This path-breaking book explores an original subject: female agency in Enlightenment Catholicism. It shows how the Enlightenment, the history of women and gender, and religious history - subjects which have often been studied in isolation from one another - can be combined to give new insights into the intellectual ferment that took place in the eighteenth century. A team of international historians explores the ways in which individual women in Europe responded to the need to reconcile Enlightenment ideas with their Catholic faith."

Marisa Linton, Kingston University, UK

"While scholarship both on the Catholic Enlightenment and on women and gender in the eighteenth century has flourished in recent years, the two have rarely been integrated - until now. This lively set of essays from a first-rate group of scholars depicts an array of remarkable women whose intellectual pursuits defied conventional gender expectations, provoking us to rethink the nature of Enlightenment Catholicism and female agency within it. This is a trailblazing volume bound to captivate anyone interested in gender and religion at the threshold of the modern world."

Eric Carlsson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA