Exploring the Afterlives of Ancient Women in Early Modern Print Culture: A Graduate Student's Reflections from the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting
English PhD Candidate, Laura DeLuca, presented her research on ancient queens in early modern English print culture at the Renaissance Society of America’s annual meeting in San Francisco, California, with the support of a Humanities Center Graduate Student Conference Grant. Laura’s presentation, titled “Emblems of Virtue: The Afterlives of Ancient Women in Early Modern Print Culture,” explored how the adoption of ancient women’s images in early modern print culture contributed to and reinforced cultural ideals of female purity and virtue, while also engaging with the often overlooked role of women in the early modern book trade. In particular, she examined representations of Lucretia and Cleopatra’s suicides in printing emblems, as well as the work of widow printer Alice Charlewood, who employed Lucretia as a printer’s device to represent her print shop.
“Presenting at RSA was especially meaningful at this stage of my dissertation. The questions and conversations that followed the panel helped me refine the project's stakes and clarify how thinking about embodiment and print culture might reshape our understanding of the circulation of early modern drama about ancient queens as a form of conduct literature. Engaging with scholars working across book history, race, gender, and visual culture also reminded me how collaborative and dynamic humanities research can be,” she said.
Through these examples, Laura investigated how printers co-opted the symbolic capital of ancient women to relay ideas about exemplary femininity, especially the expectation that women remain committed to virtue even at the cost of their own lives. By examining the functions of classical women in various printing emblems, she highlighted how early modern paratexts signaled expectations of women’s virtue while also helping uncover the broader archive of women’s labor in the book trade.
"The Humanities Center’s conference grant made it possible for me to participate in this conversation at a crucial moment in my research. Being able to present my work, receive thoughtful feedback, and connect with scholars in the field will directly shape the next stages of my dissertation and future publications."
Laura DeLuca (right) with other conference participants.