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Holiday Hours: The Folger is closing at 4:30pm on Dec 24 and Dec 31. We are closed all day on Dec 25 and Jan 1.

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Alicia Meyer

is a curator at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania and a 2023-24 Long Term Fellow at the Folger Institute. She has a Ph.D. in English and a certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies from Penn (2021). Her current book project, The Bridewell Standard: Early Modern Allegories of Sex and Gender offers a new history of early modern gender by focusing on the sexualization of poor women in English literary, material, and visual culture.
Engraving the Courtesan: Sex Work and “The Renaissance” in Victorian Books
Engraving of a woman from the torso up. She faces the viewer. She wears a broad hat with a feather on it and a dress with a low, square neckline.
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Engraving the Courtesan: Sex Work and “The Renaissance” in Victorian Books

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Alicia Meyer

When is a Hollar not a Hollar? When his name is being used in 19th century depictions of early modern women. Folger Fellow Alicia Meyer looks at sexualization, economic power, and the manipulation of the past.

Portrait of a Young African Woman
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Portrait of a Young African Woman

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Alicia Meyer

A guest post by Alicia Meyer The Folger Shakespeare Library houses three etchings of African diasporic people by Wenceslaus Hollar. While we may never know the identities of the figures in these images, Hollar’s artistic choices direct how we see…