What is the gender of political power? Since the beginning of political thought, rule has been a male prerogative in European imagination. This is of course not to say that there never were women sovereigns. In-depth studies of women sovereigns have grown considerably in number in the past three decades and have added substantially to our understanding of the complexities of their rule of power.

Yet what is often obscured by such in-depth analyses is the fact that all women rulers throughout the entirety of European cultural history have had to operate in a context that could not think of power as female – except in grotesque terms. This continuity, as this book demonstrates, can only be brought out by studying women’s political rule comparatively and in the longue durée.

This collection of essays brings together studies of female sovereignty from the Polish-Lithuanian to the British Commonwealth, and from the Middle Ages to the dawn of modern democracy. It demonstrates how the strategies and imagination women rulers adopted against the backdrop of an all-pervasive scepticism toward female rule are comparable across regions and periods. To illustrate its point, this book not only addresses historical figures and queens, but also takes stock of the rich yet unsettling imagination of female rule in philosophy, literature and art history.

What is the gender of political power ? What happens to the history of sovereignty when we reconsider it from a gender perspective ?

Political sovereignty has been a major theme in European thought from the very beginning of intellectual reflection on community. Philosophy and political theory, historiography, theology, and literature and the arts have, often in dialogue with one another, sought to represent or recalibrate notions of rule. Yet whatever covenant was imagined, sovereign rule has consistently been figured as a male prerogative

While in-depth studies of historical women rulers have proliferated in the past decades, these have not systematically explored how all women rulers throughout the entirety of European culture have had to operate in a context that could not think power as female – except in grotesque terms.

Strategic Imaginations demonstrates that this constitutive tension can only be brought out by studying women’s political rule in a comparative and longue durée manner. The book offers a collection of essays that brings together studies of female sovereignty from the Polish-Lithuanian to the British Commonwealth, and from the Middle Ages to the genesis of modern democracy. It addresses historical figures and takes stock of the rich yet unsettling imagination of female rule in philosophy, literature and art history. For all the variety of geographical, social, and historical contexts it engages, the book reveals surprising resonances between the strategies women rulers used and the images and practices they adopted in the context of an all-pervasive skepticism toward female rule.

Anke Gilleir is professor of German literature and gender theory at the Department of Literary Studies at KU Leuven.
Aude Defurne received her PhD in German literature in 2020 at KU Leuven.

Imaginations of female rule and the imaginative strategies of women rulers