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Methodologies: Working with Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts

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Abstract

The methodologies students and scholars can use when working with early modern women’s manuscripts are multiple. Insights can be gained from applying the techniques of book history and manuscript studies, such as the study of handwriting, layout, binding, and the structure of documents. Though hands-on analysis of manuscripts is ideal, many manuscripts are now available in digitized formats, and this entry outlines advantages and disadvantages to their use. In addition to using methods from early modern manuscript studies, scholars can also choose to use some from the field of women’s writing, such as asking questions about identity and agency, bringing intersectional categories to bear (such as race, class, region, and religion), and asking what a focus on gender can reveal about choices of genre, audiences, and networks. Researchers need to be aware of the challenges that can arise when working with manuscripts, from problems in attributing manuscripts to women, to accounting for lost texts, to deciding whether to pursue research via case studies or by using larger aggregate data, to being wary of existing editions. Finally, as with any kind of scholarship, scholars need to be sensitive to their own desire to impose categories and preconceptions on writing from a period that is very different from their own.

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  1. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Victoria E. Burke

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  1. Victoria E. Burke
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Correspondence to Victoria E. Burke .

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  1. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Victoria E. Burke

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Burke, V.E. (2024). Methodologies: Working with Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_72-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_72-3

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Methodologies: Working with Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts
    Published:
    09 March 2024

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_72-3

  2. Methodologies: Working with Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts
    Published:
    13 August 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_72-2

  3. Original

    Methodologies: Working with Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts
    Published:
    18 December 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_72-1

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