There is a widespread belief that women in Western societies only began to wield public power and influence to a considerable extent after the rise of revolutionary, democratic liberalism. Drawing in part from her books La Duchesse (2023) and Women of the Church (2024), historian Bronwen McShea will clarify the surprising ways that women exerted leadership at the highest levels of political, cultural, and religious life in historically Christian regimes such as Ancien régime France and the Holy Roman Empire.

About the speaker:

Bronwen Catherine McShea, a historian and author based in NYC, specializes in early modern European history and the history of Catholicism. She holds advanced degrees from Harvard and Yale, serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Augustine Institute Graduate School, and is an advisory editor for the Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu in Rome, focusing on Christianity's cultural impact. The lecture will focus on illuminating the ways that women exerted leadership at the highest levels of political, cultural, and religious life in Ancien régime France and the Holy Roman Empire.