European Women and Religious Dissent: The Advent of Modernity and the Democratic Public Sphere

At a time when fundamentalisms and populisms threaten basic human rights, it is extremely important to investigate the roots of European values such as egalitarianism and democracy, in order to contribute to popular and scholarly debates on these subjects in an informed way.

Addressing the historical relationship between religion and ideas of modernity, the EuWoRD project aims to provide a better understanding of laypersons’ contribution (women and men) to the development of the Enlightenment, when democratic concepts gradually emerged as basic rights.

It addresses particularly the history of a religious minority in seventeenth-century Europe, the Dutch Collegiant movement, and pursues a specific goal: to reveal how the practice of enlightened concepts and the participation of women in free-discussion meetings co-created the development of enlightened values.

The theory did not cause the practice: both were mutually implicated in development.

To pursue this goal, the EuWoRD project blends the methodologies of social history, gender history, history of ideas and political philosophy, and has two objectives: 1) an updated account of the Collegiants’ practices, the presence of women among their ranks, and their European network, regarding their meetings as interconfessional free associations that fostered the birth of an early public sphere; 2) an examination of the interrelations between the Collegiants’ practices and the concepts they advocated, focusing on their debates on gender equality and women’s right to free speech, and revealing how these debates were related to similar ones throughout Europe.

Due to its originality and interdisciplinarity, the EuWoRD project will have a major impact on several fields of study, as well as on the general public.

Indeed, research outcomes will be disseminated through academic (e.g., a digital map of the Collegiants’ network and two scholarly articles) and public (e.g., a Twitter account and blog entries) activities.