Trace the evolution of writing on women’s health from medieval times to the present in an upcoming Saturday Spotlight with the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library. Materials featured will cover a range of topics, including wellness, mental health, motherhood, menstruation and sexuality, and show the female body as a site of both vulnerability and empowerment.
Come explore early modern prayer books, 1970s posters and magazines and 1990s Riot Grrrl zines. The materials show that women have found ways to acquire health knowledge through community, activism, art and politics despite having been historically denied autonomy over their bodies at the hands of male-dominated medical, religious and societal institutions.
Visitors are invited to engage with the history of women's health and reflect on past practices and their resonance in today's conversations about wellness and body autonomy.
This Saturday Spotlight is curated by Michela Bertossa and Genevieve Berendt, PhD Candidates in French and Italian. Michela Bertossa specializes in 19th and 20th-century Italian culture, literature and cinema, while Genevieve Berendt focuses on French medieval literature.