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Gooitske Nijboer MA

PhD candidate

Area(s) of interest: Early Modern History, European History, Gender, History of Books, Religious History & Theology

Cohort/Start PhD: 2020-2021

The Inner Sanctum on Display. Catholic Spiritual Biographies in Counter-Reformation France and the Netherlands

University of Groningen
Promotor(es): Prof. dr. R. M. Esser, Dr. K.E. Knibbe
Start date: 1 September 2020

I research the early modern biographies of a broad range of early modern Catholic women, against the background of men’s biographies. I inquire how these texts reflected, prescribed, and negotiated various spiritual practices and beliefs and thus played an important part in disseminating the Counter-Reformation. These texts crossed linguistic borders, and catholic spirituality was in this way adapted to local cultures. I analyse the varieties in which female and male spiritual authority were represented. In this way my project challenges perceptions of religious traditions as male-dominated