Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture

Long (French, Cornell University) and her colleagues investigate characters in Early Modern history that have been triply marginalized, women as medicos, scientists and alchemists. In this revelatory volume, the lives and experiments of several female alchemists are chronicled. Their experiments follow those of many men, trying to transmute base metal into gold, for instance. Several articles also address the determination of women to gather and share gynecological information at a time when male physicians were forcing women out of medicine, even midwifery. Two of the contributors look at literary reactions to women's knowledge by alchemical philosophers. The selections show that gender, to some alchemists, was also mutable. Unlike the patriarchal political world, that of alchemy considered male and female to be equally important. This book is a welcome addition to women's history, gender studies and the arcane world of early modern alchemy. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kathleen P. Long is Professor of French at Cornell University and the author of Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe.