Tracy Adams, born in Mankato, Minnesota, USA. Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Associate Professor in French at the University of Auckland.
EURIAS Senior Fellow (1 September 2011 – 30 June 2012)
“SCHOOL FOR LADIES”: WOMEN’S NETWORKS AND EARLY MODERN EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY
I completed Christine de Pizan and the Armagnac-Burgundian Feud:
Studies of Christine de Pizan’s political thought have taken as a point of departure popular notions of the court of mad King Charles VI and the actors in his government inherited from nineteenth-century French historians whose work was coloured by the French Revolution and anti-German sentiment, resulting in an incoherent narrative of her thought. The study revises understanding of Christine’s ideas on monarchy and female regency in light of recent research on the political figures of her day.
and began work on School for Ladies:
Female diplomatic activity in pre-modern times has been regarded as marginal to serious dealings among male rulers. But because politics were intensely personal/family affairs, focusing on marriage alliances, women’s networking is central to the history of diplomacy. The study explores the women’s relationships, their positions in various networks, their technologies of mentoring, and their roles in diplomacy (symbolic and practical).