Approches to Women's History

Historical Perspectives

Historical Perspectives a Scottish-based postgraduate ran network, fostering discussions on historical-based research by PGR students.

This session in our 2022/2023 seminar series features two speakers, Karina Atudosie and Catherine DevlinK﻿arina Atudosie, &#x27;Rethinking Our Approach to Studying Royal Women in the Hebrew Bible&#x27;When we think of royalty in the Hebrew Bible, many are familiar with Kings Saul, David and Solomon, yet few would first think of queens even though we have also perhaps heard of the Queen of Sheba, Jezebel, Bathsheba and Esther. In this paper, I want to begin interrogating some of the issues with scholarship that has focused on royal women in the Hebrew Bible to start thinking of ways we might improve our approach. The first issue I want to discuss is the limitations posed by scholars’ focus on royal women primarily in the Books of Samuel and King, which miss a lot of important aspects of how queenship is constructed in the other biblical texts. The second issue is that scholars have often approached the royal women in the texts to find out what they tell us about the actions and characteristics of the men they are associated with rather than to analyse them in their own right. As such, the royal women have often been grouped together and contrasted. The clearest examples of this are studies of David’s wives which have tended to study the royal women associated with David to see what they tell us about his characteristics. I want to examine how scholarship can offer a more comprehensive discussion of royal women in the Hebrew Bible by including texts which have been left out of discussions of royal women, and by avoiding exploring royal women primarily through the lens of their connections to men.Karina is a first year DPhil student at the University of Oxford researching how queenship is constructed in the Hebrew Bible by looking at the intersections of power, gender and royal ideology. She has previously completed a MA by Research in Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham with a thesis looking at hegemonic power in the Song of Songs and a BA (Hons) in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham with a thesis examining the construction of gender and power in Queen Jezebel’s narrative.C﻿atherine Devlin, &#x27;How to Remember a Woman: Rose Dabney Forbes and the Future of Female BiographiesNo one can predict whom history will remember, but none of Boston’s twentieth century elite would have expected Rose Dabney Forbes to be forgotten. A prominent socialite and celebrated activist, Forbes served as the chairman of the Massachusetts branch of the Women’s Peace Party and on the advisory council of the World Peace Foundation. Her guest lists included presidents and European nobility. Yet no secondary sources tell her story. “Fighting for Peace” is the first secondary source dedicated to uncovering the story of Rose Dabney Forbes. In tracing the life of a woman who was so prominent for her time yet so quickly forgotten, I examine why and how we remember historical figures, whether remembrance requires admiration, and how patriarchal historiographic norms lose women’s stories. Based on archival documents and biographical theory, I argue that Forbes and her peers complicate a male-centric historiographic tradition that favors radical figures. Remembering the peace movement requires a reframing of how we write biography that moves away from male-dominated narratives rather than trying to inject women into an already written story.Catherine Devlin graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in May 2022 with a BA in history. Her passion for telling overlooked stories and drawing out historical personalities motivates her research, with her articles and conference presentations ranging from pre-Civil War Boston to modern day African female activists. In line with this interest, she worked as the lead researcher and associate producer on the 2020 Academy Award qualifying film Sky Blossom, which profiled the often forgotten group of child and millennial caregivers. She continues this line of inquiry as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Glasgow.To find out more about Historical Perspectives, find us on social media, or at our website 	https://histperspectives.wordpress.com

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Approches to Women's History

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