Conference: Visual culture and women’s political identity in the early modern Iberian world II

Following the opening conference devoted to this theme, held at CHAM, in November 2016, this second conference brings together an international group of researchers from a range of scholarly perspectives to explore, discuss and debate a series of case studies on the visual construction and projection of women’s political identity in medieval and early modern Spain and Portugal. The papers explore a number of critical perspectives that range from the portrayal of Queens and their household to the discourse on female piety and spirituality, both in the court and beyond to lower social strata. The role of women’s agency within the structures of patriarchal society and discourse that underscored much of visual culture is addressed in a number of insightful ways. Furthermore, the range of papers engages with prescient methodological issues facing the study of the visual dimensions of female political identity.

In addition this conference is pleased to announce a plenary lecture by Juliet Perkins, King’s College London.

Programme
Thursday 21st September

9:15 Welcome
9:30-11:00 Session 1) Iconographies of authority 
Chair: Jean Andrews
María Morrás, Departament d’Humanitats, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
La iconografía mariana en la Corona de Aragón y la orden de la Jarra

Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya, Universitat Jaume I
Reinas Fuertes: Poder, Religión Y Familia En La Representación De Las Mujeres Habsburgo

11:00-11:30 Coffee

11:30 – 1:00 Session 2) Religious identity in word and image
Chair: Jeremy Roe

Jean Andrews, University of Nottingham
Josefa in Óbidos: painting under the sign of Luisa de Guzmán 

Joana Serrado, University of Oxford
Six characters in search of a Canon: Saintliness as Feminist Subjectivity in the Early Modern Portuguese Empire

Lunch 1:00-2:00

2:00 – 4:00 Session 3) Iberian Queens and their courts
Chair: Carla Alferes Pinto, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Laura Oliván, Universidad de Granada
Dresses, Portraits and Spaces: Female Identities at the Alcázar (1621-1665)

Mercedes Llorente, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
The portrayal of two Iberian Queens: Luisa Gusmão and Mariana of Austria

Susana Varela Flor, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Catherine of Braganza: the iconographic strategies of a Catholic Queen in a Protestant Kingdom (1662-1693)

4:00-4:30 Tea

4:30 Plenary Lecture

Juliet Perkins, King’s College London
Guilherme Debrie’s engravings for Theatro Comico Portuguez

Friday 22nd September

9:30-11:00 Session 4) The Queen’s household
Chair: Jeremy Lawrance

Vanessa de Cruz Medina, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Objects and Agency: Visual Culture and the Political Identity of Ladies-in-Waiting to the Habsburg Courts

Jeremy Roe, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Luisa de Gusmão and the staging of political identity 

11:00- 11:30 Coffee

11:30-1:00 Session 5) Discussion
Concluding address: Jeremy Lawrance, University of Nottingham
Roundtable discussion

For enquiries please contact Jeremy Roe, jeremy.roe@fcsh.unl.pt