Sajed Chowdhury: Renaissance Hermeticism and Women

Building on the work of Frances Yates, Sajed Chowdhury proposes that hermetic writings (Hermes Trismegistus, in particular) were key influences on some renaissance women. He argues that hermetic writings, accessed via male contemporaries, informed the spiritual, medical and textual practices of women like Marguerite of Navarre, Katherine Philips and Aphra Behn, which are elucidated by a reading of their philosophical poetry. Chowdhury seeks to reintegrate significant strands of early modern intellectual and esoteric culture into intellectual history that has been lost due to a focus on a masculine geneology of knowledge.

Sajed Chowdhury’s primary field of research is early modern literature, specializing in Renaissance poetry, early modern women’s writing, manuscript identities, and the history of sexuality. His doctoral thesis, Dissident Metaphysics in Renaissance Women’s Poetry (2013), was completed at the University of Sussex and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). He is currently based at RECIRC, NUI Galway (http://recirc.nuigalway.ie/).

The conference Frances Yates: The Art of Memory was held on April 30, 2016 at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. The session was chaired by Francesca Bugliani. Recorded by Anna Rajala and Timo Uotinen.

More at: kingstonshakespeareseminar.wordpress.com/