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Revision as of 14:09, 9 August 2007

New approaches to European Women's Writing before 1900

Interest in the texts and biographies of women writers who wrote before our time is on the rise. After having long been ignored in works of literary historiography, some of these women writers have gained new readers today who consider their texts to be surprisingly “modern”.

However, familiarity with the works of women writers varies greatly from one country to another, and the resources that are available to assess their historical significance still remain insufficient. It is difficult to evaluate their importance because we know little about how these works were received in their own day. What kinds of roles did these women play in their time and in forming the literary field? What kind of audience read their works? Finding answers to these questions and attempting to recreate the literary dialogues which these women writers initiated are among the primary interests of a group of researchers collaborating in the international project entitled NEWW: New approaches to European Women’s Writing before 1900.

This project, directed by Suzan van Dijk and funded bij N.W.O (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research; 2007-2010) seeks to examine these questions in a context larger than that of strict national boundaries. Given this geographical and historical scope, it is evident that millions of pieces of data must be brought to light. A flexible database entitled WomenWriters, the Reception of their Works has been created to this effect:www.databasewomenwriters.nl. This “virtual collaboratory” has been conceived to contain all these references to contemporary reception documents and to other material reflecting on women’s work. It allows a completely new approach to the question of women’s place in European literary history. International collaboration is presently being prepared in order to have the full benefit of this tool.

WomenWriters makes it possible to study the contemporary international reception of women authors, allowing researchers to focus on various issues: the creation of networks, the influence of intermediaries, men and women: literary critics, artistic patrons, editors, colleagues etc., the role of institutions. The database enables researchers to approach these questions within a national perspective and, most importantly, at an international level.

The previous version of this website is presently being reworked and adapted. Its objective is staying the same: the presentation of provisional and partial results of research which has been allowed or facilitated by the database WomenWriters. The direct relationship between the website and the database is visible through hyperlinks leading from the online articles to the source materials. Note that while access to the website is open to everyone, a password is needed for complete visibility of the database content. (Contact us!)

In the first place this website is providing results of a digitizing project entitled The International Reception of Women’s Writing. This N.W.O.-funded project (2004-2007), equally directed bij Suzan van Dijk, is in particular concerned with reception of women’s writing in the Netherlands. It will be closed by a meeting to be organized on 21 September 2007.

Further information and contact: Suzan van Dijk

SvD, April 2007
Transl. Jane Wilhelm

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