Whores of Babylon

Frances E. Dolan is professor of English at the University of California, Davis.

"Whores of Babylon is not about religion, as the term has been understood by many scholars who study early modern Catholicism. Religion is not the main concern of this book; religion serves instead mainly to highlight and underline points made about some ways seventeenth-century Englishwomen were valued and employed, used and abused, in print." —Archivum Historicum"This is an excellent book, one that painstakingly yet engagingly illuminates the bifurcated social and discursive positions of Catholic women in early modern England." —Albion"Whores of Babylon is essential reading for scholars working on the intersections of gender, religion, law, and nationalism in early modern England. Dolan's scholarship combines meticulous historical research and textual analysis with a sophisticated grasp of theoretical and historiographical questions. Moreover, Dolan's lucid prose makes her exemplary form of cultural criticism a pleasure to read." —Sixteenth Century Journal"[Dolan] reveals a historical picture that theorizes the interaction between religion, politics, and gender. For scholars who study other religions and time periods, Dolan's book usefully demonstrates how and why closely-related religious groups deploy gender to mark difference. For specialists in early modern Christianity, Whores of Babylon provides convincing arguments about why Catholic women and (even more surprisingly) the Catholic couple so fascinated pamphleteers, preachers, playwrights, and polemicists as they promoted a white, Protestant, masculine, English national identity." —Journal of the American Academy of Religion