Women as Writers of Heroic Poetry in Renaissance Italy: An Epic Micro-Tradition?

This symposium explores all facets of heroic poetry as written by Italian Renaissance women and aims to spotlight their heroic poems and place them in a tradition that has for the most part ignored their work. We are also interested in the ways these women authors handle specific conventions of the genre such as the difference between the romance and epic modes, the engagement with literary predecessors, and the representation of traditional female characters like the woman-warrior or the enchantress.

Speakers include: Julia Hairston (UCEAP Rome), Julia Kisacky (Baylor University), Laura Lazzari (Catholic University of America), Serena Pezzini (Scuola normale superiore di Pisa), Meredith Ray (University of Delaware) , Maria Galli Stampino (University of Miami), Christine Ristaino (Emory University), and Gerry Milligan (CUNY- Staten Island).

Sponsored by the Franklin D. Murphy Chair in Italian Renaissance Studies. Organized by the UCLA Department of Italian. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, the UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies, the UCLA Center for 17th-and-18th-Century Studies, the UCLA Department of History, and the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.