Women in Academia? Gendering knowledge transfers in university cities in the early modern LowCountries (Leuven & Leiden, 1575-1675)

This project aims to study the role of women as knowledge ‘agents’ in university cities to understand
how gender shaped the transfer of knowledge in the early modern period. Comparing the ‘Catholic’
university of Leuven with the ‘Calvinist’ university of Leiden (1575-1675), it inspects the impact of
social, cultural and religious parameters on the agency of women in early modern academia. It aims
to: 1) Identify the women in urban centres of knowledge; 2) Examine how women participated in the
transfer of knowledge; And, 3) Analyse the impact of gender on the transfer of knowledge. This
project stands at the interdisciplinary and methodological nexus of the history of knowledge, book
history, and gender studies. After first uncovering female knowledge agents by reading the
institutional records against the grain, and examining how they participated in the transfer of
knowledge in academic households, printing firms, and through patronage, this project applies an
intersectional approach to analyse the agency of women in early modern university cities. Uncovering
this history will lead to more inclusive conceptions of the past and a more inclusive sense of
belonging in the present.