Did the Protestant Reformation liberate women? Or did it establish
new forms of patriarchy? Did the Catholic Reformation exalt women by
encouraging devotion to the Virgin Mary? Or did it establish newly
rigid codes of conduct for women and men alike? In this course we
will explore these sorts of questions by reading some of the great
religious texts written by Christian men and women in Early Modern
Europe (in the 16th-18th centuries) alongside recent, exciting
theoretical work about gender and religion. In the process, we will
seek to go beyond the kinds of questions posed above in order to
appreciate the many different ways that the Protestant and Catholic
Reformations dramatically influenced notions of masculinity and
femininity and shaped the world we live in today.