“Whenever I Had a Free Moment, I Was Writing Something.” The Works of Justina Siegemund in the Context of Female Natural-Scientific Writings of Early Modern History in German-Speaking Areas.

Abstract

The study analyses four early modern scientific treatises from the German speaking regions written by women, namely the midwife Justina Siegemund, the astronomer Maria Cunitia, the entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian and the doctor Dorothea Christiana Erxleben. These female authors were rare phenomena in the fields of their interest, and they had to make considerable efforts to legitimize their research and publication activities. On the basis of comparison of their treatises the study tries to find out the potential existence of some patterns of “women’s writing” in the field of natural sciences in the Early Modern Period. The other question is to what degree did those patterns change over the period of hundred years which lays between the publication of the first and last of the analysed books.