Each of the topics addressed in the title represents a broad and well-researched field of research. Social networks (in the metaphorical sense as well as in network analysis) and the social embedding of court life as well as religious identities offer fruitful research perspectives in all three fields. The workshop will focus on the overlap between the topics of religiosity and court networks in early modern women's self-writing. It will address questions such as how courtly piety was described in women's autobiographical texts; how religious practices and identities shaped their court networks and how they used writing about these matters as a communicative strategy; which religious books influenced autobiographical writing by aristocratic women; or how religious boundaries and their permeability were reflected in these texts. For the workshop we apply a broad definition of self-testimonies, which also includes letters or official sources (such as suppliques).

Organizing team: Selina Galka, Sebastian Kühn, Ines Peper, Michael Pölzl, Chiara Petrolini, Joëlle Weis.

The keynote lecture by Claudia Ulbrich on TEXTGESCHICHTE(N). DIE MEMOIREN DER GRÄFIN VON SCHWERIN (Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 6pm) is organized in cooperation with the Department of History of the University of Vienna. Claudia Ulbrich is Professor Emeritus of Early Modern History and Gender History at the Freie Universität Berlin.