Convent Autobiography reveals how English Catholic women wrote about themselves, their families, and their lives in a period where it was illegal to practice Catholicism in England. These nuns went into a two-fold kind of exile for their beliefs. They moved abroad and they "died to the world", trying to cut ties with family and friends. Yet their convents needed support from outsiders to thrive. The nuns studied here reveal how they navigated this through their letters, printed works, paintings, and prayers. Often times these women wrote anonymously, a common practice for nuns, monks, and devout people of many religious persuasions up until the twentieth century. But anonymity was not just a neutral way of signalling humility or deep religious belief; it could allow people to write about themselves a lot more than they would have while writing under their own name. Exploring how some nuns exploited this to shape their convent's chronicle around their own points of view, Convent Autobiography holds up a mirror to the think about the double-edged role of anonymity throughout history.

About the Author
Victoria Van Hyning received a Masters in Medieval English Literature from Oxford University and a PhD in Early Modern Literature from the University of Sheffield where she held a British Library co-doctoral award. She held two postdoctoral fellowships at Oxford: a Digital Humanities and Crowdsourcing Fellowship (Zooniverse, Department of Astrophysics), and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (Faculty of English and Pembroke). She has published on women's writing, autobiography, early modern Catholicism, and crowdsourcing. Her online humanities crowdsourcing interest has led her to relocate to the USA where she serves as a Senior Innovation Specialist at the Library of Congress.

Reviews
This book should be welcomed by those whose own interests lie beyond the spheres of Catholic history and women's writing. The book was undoubtedly framed with a broad readership in mind. Indeed, the author at all times assists in making it as accessible as possible to those unfamiliar with the topic. * Cormac Begadon, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
Readers will also value the glossary of conventual terms, the painstakingly detailed index and the fulsome bibliography, all of which are in keeping with the rigorous and methodical work offered in this study of conventual texts through the lens of autobiography studies. * Laurence Lux-Sterritt, Journal of Religious History *
One of the most impressive aspects of Van Hyning's findings is her ability to isolate what she refers to as "acts of self-betrayal" (32), or moments where an individual nun inadvertently reveals facts about her own identity. When combined with palaeographic observations, manuscript analysis, and prosopographical data, Van Hyning convincingly identifies individual nuns as authors, often for the first time. * Liam Peter Temple, Church History *
Convent Autobiography is a major contribution to criticism on early modern Catholicism, and it belongs on the bookshelves of scholars interested in autobiography, the convents abroad, cloistered writing, and monastic history. Van Hyning's intrepid detective work and ground-breaking treatment of autobiography will open up valuable new terrain for anyone specializing in history, literary studies, religious studies, and women's studies. * Jaime Goodrich, Wayne State University, British Cathlic History *
Convent Autobiography: Early Modern English Nuns in Exile,...enables a contemporary reader to envision more fully the convent as a space in which women's textual engagement and production thrived. * Tonya J. Moutray, Journal of British Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197266571
Author Victoria Van Hyning
Format Hardback
Page Count 416
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 808g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 162mm * 30mm