Call for contributions - A volume in celebration of Christina of Sweden’s 400th birthday.

Volume Editors:
Theresa Kutasz Christensen, Camilla Kandare, Ylva Haidenthaller

Project Summary:
In celebration of Christina of Sweden’s 400th birthday celebrations in 2026, we plan to organize a volume that highlights and expands scholarship on Queen Christina and her lasting influence. This book will present interdisciplinary work on the queen with a transnational focus on her social, religious, political, artistic, intellectual, and academic engagement and reception in the 17th century. The essays will consider the vast material already published on Christina, as well as new avenues of research on the queen, reflecting on the almost mythical status she holds with the aim of establishing the current state of research, with particular weight given to the exploration and exploitation of her movement and influence as both a woman and a queen. Persistent thematic approaches and scholarly trends are re-addressed through investigations into Christina’s self representation, networks, and reception from within the context of her own place and time. This can be accomplished through the assessment or reassessment of primary source material and/or through the location of Christina within established bodies of scholarship addressing themes including early modern networks, queenship, fashion, or writing.

Project Timeline:
We plan to notify contributors of their selection by February of 2024. Once the project is contracted with a press, we anticipate final essays of no more than 5,000 words will be due in draft by early Fall of 2024 with the goal to publish in time for the anniversary celebrations in 2026.

Working Title of the Volume:
Christina in Context: A Celebration of Queen Christina of Sweden at 400.

Volume Abstract:
Scholarship on queen Christina has often projected later values and methodologies onto her, failing to account for the nuances of her seventeenth-century lived experience, her agency, and the context of her contemporary reception. Moving away from narratives that discuss the queen as an anomaly or an exception to period norms, the essays in this volume will instead locate her within the broader networks and contexts in which she operated. We seek to lift the veil of exceptionality which has long concealed her navigation of the norms, influences, and expectations of her time, thereby allowing for a more nuanced view of her person and influence.

We encourage authors of these essays to take as their foundation the seventeenth-century context in which Christina lived. We welcome contributions on topics that address Christina as both a queen and a woman who operated in diverse locations throughout her life, situating her within early modern female networks, women’s agency, power, and queenship. This can include, but is not limited to, investigations of Christina's participation in the art, literature, philosophy, education, religion and spirituality, scientific history, and the performing arts of her period.

Keywords: Queen; Christina of Sweden; Transnational; Women and Gender; Interdisciplinary; Primary Source; Seventeenth Century.

Applications:
To apply, please submit the following materials in a single PDF to queenchristina1626@gmail.com no later than February 1, 2024.
- Name, affiliation
- 1 page CV
- Provisional essay title
- A 700 - 1000 word abstract
- Number of illustrations anticipated