@article{1447463,
      recid = {1447463},
      author = {Verini, Alexandra.},
      title = {English women's spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: new kingdoms  of womanhood /},
      publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan},
      address = {Cham, Switzerland :},
      pages = {1 online resource},
      year = {2022},
      abstract = {English Womens Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms  of Womanhood uncovers a tradition of womens utopianism that  extends back to medieval womens monasticism, overturning  accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas  More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority  that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval  and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in  reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired  proto-feminist futures. The utopianism developed within the  English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's  spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the  Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding.  Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized  influence on the first English womens literary utopias by  authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell.  Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of  utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities  for themselves as well as for their larger religious and  political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent  to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New  Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern  womens intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia  itself.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1447463},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00917-4},
}