Wednesday 5 November 2025
Location: Museum Plantin-Moretus
13.00 - 16.00 Optional pre-conference programme
- A show and Tell on the archives and the women of the Plantin Press
- A tour with the curator of the temporary exhibition Women’s Business/Business Women
- A printing demonstration
17.00 Welcome
17.30 Keynote Lecture I – Susan Broomhall (Australian Catholic University)
18.30-20.00 Reception (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
Thursday 6 November 2025
Locations: Nottebohmzaal Erfgoedbibliotheek Conscience (NB) / Auditorium Letterenhuis (AL)
10.00-11.30 Parallel sessions 1
1a. The roles of daughters, wives and servants I (Location: NB)
- Katie Holly (University of North Carolina, USA), Wives, Daughters, and the Authority of the Executrix in the Early English Book Trade
- Kristof Selleslach (Museum Plantin-Moretus), Maria de Sweert and the Plantin Press. A revaluation of silent partnerships by printer’s widows
- Rachel Cilia-Werdmölder (Cornell University, USA), Daughters of the press: Tracing Jewish women through the printed page in early modern Amsterdam
1b. Networks and Exchange (Location: AL)
- Joanne Butler (Keele University, UK), Women supporting women in the eighteenth century English regional print trade
- Lieke van Deinsen (KU Leuven) and Nina Lamal (Huygens ING, Amsterdam), The correspondence between a paper merchant and Plantin women
- Valentyna Bochkovska (Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine, Kyiv), Women in the book trade of the L’viv Stavropegian brotherhood (Ukraine) of the XVII c. and in the producing of engravings of the Pochayiv Printing House (Ukraine) of the XVIII c.
11.30-12.00 Coffee/tea (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
12.00-13.30 Parallel sessions 2
2a. The roles of daughters, wives and servants II (Location: NB)
- Heleen Wyffels (Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheken, Antwerp), The roles of wives in the printing business of Plantin-Moretus
- Adam Smith (St. John University, York, UK), Winifred Gales & Radical Print Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century Sheffield
- Paul Arblaster (UCLouvain Saint-Louis, Brussels), Getting the runaround: The 1689 investigation of a clandestine pamphlet in Brussels
2b. Knowledge Production (Location: AL)
- Stéphanie Reitzig (Columbia University, USA), 'As Clever as Artful': Women and Craft Knowledge in Print in Early Modern Nuremberg
- Beth DeBold (Newcastle University, UK), 'This Body': the London Stationers and Gender Identity
- Amanda Pipkin (University of North Carolina, USA), Women’s (un?)Orthodox knowledge production in Dutch Reformed Networks, 1650-1710
13.30-14.30 Lunch (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
14.30-16.00 Parallel sessions 3
3a. Agency (Location: NB)
- Alica-Nana Citron (University of Oslo, Norway), Printing Privileges: Women and their Agency in Book Production of the Early Modern Period
- Saskia Limbach (Georg-August Universität, Göttingen, Germany), Learning the ropes. Women in the German book trade, 1550-1700
- Violet Soen (KU Leuven), Women as Academic Printers? New conjections about the business of women in the university town Douai in Habsburg Flanders (1559-1659)
3b. Specializations (Location: AL)
- Helena Declerck (KU Leuven), The Antwerp Print Seller Susanna Verbruggen (1684-1752): A Biographical Study and Reconstruction of Her Print Shop
- Margriet Hoogvliet (Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam), Uncovering Women Mapmakers in Amsterdam (c. 1580-1800)
- Michael Noone (Boston College, USA), Susana Muñoz (d. 1625), the unsung printer of sacred music in Golden Age Salamanca
16.00-16.30 Coffee/tea (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
16.30-18.00 Parallel sessions 4
4a. Interactions between the book trade and religious (catholic) communities (Location: NB)
- Patricia Stoop (University of Antwerp), Women Religious and the Economics of Hand-Written Book Production in the Late Middle Ages
- Linde Van den Eede (KU Leuven), Circulating Knowledge in the Cloister: the Seventeenth-Century Annunciates of the Low Countries
- Maddy C. Keightley-Philipps (Durham University, UK), Reading Pious Books in Their Company: Early Modern English Catholic Women and the Use of Missionary Texts
4b. Consumption cultures and the book (Location: AL)
- Anna Penkała-Jastrzębska (University of the National Education Commission, Krakow, Poland), Women's books collections at private noble courts in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first part of XVIII century
- Gráinne McMenamin (Ulster University, UK), Printed and Bound: (Re)Discovering Women’s Work in The Derry and Raphoe Library Collection
- Valentina Sonzini (Università di Firenze, Italy), Books and Matronage
19.00 Conference dinner
Friday 7 November 2025
Location: Rubenshuis – conference center ‘Kolveniershof’
9.30-10.30 Keynote Lecture II – Alicia Montoya (Radboud University Nijmegen)
10.30-11.00 Coffee/tea (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
11.00-12.30 Session 5
Computational approaches
- Evi Dijcks (KU Leuven, Women Printers in Early Modern Leiden: Networks and Representations
- Kirk Melnikoff (University of North Carolina, USA), Women in the Early Modern English Book Trade and their Networks
- Lisa Bakhuizen van den Brink (University of Amsterdam), Digital Methods in Book History: Gender, Career and Family in the Early Modern Dutch Book Trade
12.30-13.30 Lunch (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
13.30-15.00 Session 6
Places of work
- Molly G. Yarn (independent scholar), 'Old Bookes and odd things': Women’s Printing Houses in the London Archives
- Christine Moog (University of Arts, London), Susan Islip, Space and Networks in Seventeenth-Century London Printing Houses
- Helen Williams (Northumbria University, UK), Paper mills and household management
15.00-15.30 Coffee/tea (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
15.30-17.00 Session 7
(Paratextual) Representations
- Emily C. Francomano (Georgetown University, USA), Margarita Wolschaten’s Book of Love and Languages
- Martine van Elk (California State University, USA), A Transnational Perspective on Women Stationers in Amsterdam, London, and Paris
- Elise Watson (University of Edinburgh, UK), Drukster, Printeress, Imprimeuse: Gender, Paratext, and Business Strategy in the Early Modern Low Countries
17.00 Closing remarks & reception (provided by the Museum Plantin-Moretus)
