Rethinking eighteenth-century cosmopolitanisms: Women’s letters in a transnational and transatlantic correspondence
FBK Aula Piccola
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali
How did people who did not travel frequently or widely imagine the world and contribute to the growing awareness of globality in the eighteenth century? In this paper, I engage with discussions on the formation of global imaginaries, as well as on the role of epistolary communication in shaping allegiances and identities, to reconsider (female) cosmopolitanism in its ordinary forms, beyond the cases of women travellers, writers, translators and collectors that have been the focus of much recent research. I use as a source the vast correspondence of the enlightened and revolutionary criollo Francisco de Miranda (1750–1816), specifically around 300 letters written by women in several languages and from various locations in Europe, North and South America. Moving beyond interpretations that view those letters as mere sentimental utterances addressed to a man who fashioned himself as an enlightened traveller and universal revolutionary, I explore the ways in which these women used their connection with Miranda to expand their own mental horizons, to negotiate the gendered implications of mobility and to influence his political identity and ideas while shaping their own.
MÓNICA BOLUFER PERUGA | European University Institute
Coordinamento scientifico:
Anna Clara Basilicò (FBK-ISIG)
Irene Fattacciu (FBK-ISIG)
Alessandra Quaranta (FBK-ISIG)
Massimo Rospocher (FBK-ISIG)
Sandra Toffolo (FBK-ISIG)
Ciclo di seminari: “Tavola ovale di storia moderna“
ISIG è soggetto accreditato o qualificato a realizzare attività formativa a favore del personale della scuola trentina.
Evento in lingua inglese.
La presentazione avverrà in presenza in Aula Piccola – FBK fino ad esaurimento posti e in modalità online.
E’ obbligatoria la registrazione entro il giorno 28 gennaio 2026 alle ore 12.00.
Immagine: Biblioteca FBK. Credits: Andrea Franceschini
Relatori
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Mónica Bolufer Peruga - SpeakerEuropean University InstituteMónica Bolufer Peruga is Professor of Early Modern History at the European University Institute, specializing in eighteenth-century cultural, intellectual and gender history of the Spanish world in European and global context. Her research covers discourses of gender, the construction of subjectivities and sensibilities through education, politeness and body discipline, and cultural circulation and mediation (travel, translation, correspondence). Her books include "Constructions of femininity" in the Spanish Enlightenment (Spanish 1998; English version 2026), "Arte y artificio de la vida en común" (Art and Artifice of Life in Common, 2019), "La vida y la escritura en el siglo XVIII (Life and Writing in the Eighteenth Century", 2008); as co-editor, "The Routledge Companion to the Hispanic Enlightenment" (2020), "European Modernities and the Passionate South" (2023) and "Gender and Cultural Mediation in the Long Eighteenth Century" (2024). She was PI of the ERC-AdG project "CIRGEN" (2019-2024).
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L'iniziativa è stata realizzata anche grazie al contributo della Direzione generale Educazione, ricerca e istituti culturali del Ministero della Cultura.