History Lecturer Abby Zanger gave an open lecture entitled "War, Shame, and Sex in Early Modern Europe" yesterday evening in Tisch 314.The talk, sponsored by the history department, dealt with political allegories and French caricatures of the Spanish during the 17th century at the time of the Thirty Years' War.
Zanger, whose expertise lies in the history of gender and sexuality in early modern Europe as well as the history of the book and print culture, enhanced the lecture with handouts and a slide presentation. About 20 people attended, only a few of whom were students.
During the war, because the French were fighting against the Spanish, many of the images were negative and relied heavily on propaganda.
Specifically, the war provided "a format for official propaganda," Zanger said, launching into a discussion of examples.
She presented the images in two categories. The first were virulently satirical and crude depictions of cruelty toward Spaniards. Such images showed castration and vomiting, among other things. "These images map the denigration of Spain directly onto the Spanish body," she said.
The second group involved a more subtle combination of allegory and satire. "Allegorical figures can be just as aggressive but draw in the audience in a different way," she said.
Though individual images were analyzed very closely, Zanger stressed that their significance lies in their effect on the early modern viewer, rather than the content itself. "The images are not innocent portrayals or mirrors of what life was really like," she said.
"It's the draw to interpretation that's important," she said, noting that the images engaged the surrounding community in a sphere of discussion, analysis and enjoyment.
In her concluding remarks, Zanger said that these French works of art were especially relevant in the 17th century because the French comprised 20 percent of Europe's population at the time. These images "created a community that experienced political allegories in ways I think we are just beginning to understand," she said.
Zanger is also the author of two books: "Scenes from the Marriage of Louis XIV: Nuptial Fictions and the Making of Absolutist Power" and "Writing About Sex: The Discourses of Eroticism in Seventeenth Century France."
