About

This blog was created in response to the overwhelming response to our call for papers for the upcoming workshop “Power Couples? Collaboration at work and at home, ca. 1750–1920s“, which will be held at the Martin Luther University Halle, May 11th – 13th 2025.

In recent decades, a significant body of scholarship across history, philosophy, literary studies, and sociology has exposed the ‘hidden’ intellectual, social, and domestic, and emotional labour women have contributed to the careers and public reputations of male colleagues, relatives, and partners. Nonetheless, one phenomenon remains notably under-researched: the dynamics of couples whose collaborations were often openly acknowledged, and their impact upon the development of modern political, intellectual, professional, artistic, and religious cultures.

Marie and Pierre Curie, he holding up a glowing specimen of radium. Colour lithograph by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after J. M. Price [Imp, JMP], 1904. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection (Public Domain).

The aim of our blog is to fill this gap and to foster further exchange across countries and disciplines. Our focus is the period from the mid-eighteenth to early-twentieth centuries – a time of accelerated social and technological change, expansion of rights, and reconfiguration of professions, civil society, and nation-states. While the contributions of certain couples have attracted scholarly interest within the history of science and knowledge, our approach is deliberately broader – encompassing political, academic, social, and cultural spheres. By adopting a genuinely inclusive framework that brings together Eastern and Western European perspectives within a global context and explores synergies and differences across the longue durée, we will deepen our understanding of the complex intersections of empire, care, race, and gender, and their collective impact on female agency and visibility.

The blog will serve as a platform to

(1) present ongoing research from scholars around the globe, to

(2) inform about upcoming and past events and to

(3) facilitate future cooperations and projects.

We very much welcome submissions from scholars around the world of all career stages and disciplines. We are looking forward to the future exchange.

Katharina Eger, Sven Jaros, Zoë Thomas.

Further details will follow soon.