Near the forefront of any examination of disciplinary pursuits in the academy today, among the many important issues being addressed is the role of computing and its integration into, and perhaps revolutionizing of, central methodological approaches. The series New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies addresses this context from both broad and narrow perspectives, with anticipated discussions rooted in areas including literature, art history, musicology, and culture in the medieval and Renaissance periods.

In the fourth volume of the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies series, volume editors Tassie Gniady, Kris McAbee, and Jessica Murphy bring together some of the best work from the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies panels at the Renaissance Society of America (RSA) annual meetings for the years 2004–2010. These essays demonstrate a dedication to grounding the use of “newest” practices in the theories of the early modern period. At the same time, the essays are interested in the moment—the needs of scholars then, the theories of media that informed current understanding, and the tools used to conduct studies.

An engaging account of women’s travels in the early modern period. 

This book showcases three Frenchwomen who ventured far from home at a time when such traveling was rare. In 1639, Marie de l’Incarnation embarked for New France where she founded the first Ursuline monastery in present-day Canada. In 1750, Madame du Boccage set out at the age of forty on her first “grand tour.” She visited England, the Netherlands, and Italy where she experienced firsthand the intellectual liberty offered there to educated women. As the Reign of Terror gripped France, the Marquise de la Tour du Pin fled to America with her husband and their two young children, where they ran a farm from 1794 to 1796. The writings these women left behind detailing their respective journeys abroad represent significant contributions to early modern travel literature. This book makes available to anglophone readers three texts that are rich in both historical and literary terms.  
 

These translations from the French bring two of Claudine-Alexandrine de Tencin’s novels back to life: The Memoirs of the Count of Comminge (1735), presented as a much-needed new translation, and The Misfortunes of Love (1747), appearing here for the first time in English. Published more than half a century after Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves, they belonged less to Tencin’s time than to the tradition of the “feminine historical novel” inspired by Lafayette. Beautifully written in the spare but powerful prose characteristic of French classicism and widely read both in Tencin’s lifetime and beyond, the novels were forgotten in the mid-nineteenth century. Like the work of Abbé Prévost and Pierre de Marivaux, they were important contributions to the early sentimental novel. They also anticipated, surprisingly, the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe which appeared later in the century.