{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/121202"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/121202","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Celibate pleasures: convents, asexuality, and women's agency in British literature, 1660-1760","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2025-08-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2025-08-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Cole, Megan Elizabeth"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Nazar, Hina","Pollock, Anthony","Markley, Robert","Weiss, Deborah"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-08","date_published":"2023-08","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z","subjects":["Singleness","Asexuality","Women Writers","Eighteenth Century"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2023 Megan Cole"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121202","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Nazar, Hina","Pollock, Anthony","Markley, Robert","Weiss, Deborah"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Cole, Megan Elizabeth"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2023-08","2023-06-22"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Singleness","Asexuality","Women Writers","Eighteenth Century"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2023 Megan Cole"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121202"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2025-08-01","The student, Megan Cole, accepted the attached license on 2023-06-14 at 08:22.","The student, Megan Cole, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-06-14 at 08:59.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-06-22 at 10:14.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #19422 on 2023-12-04 at 17:30:26","“Celibate Pleasures” explores the importance of singleness to conceptualizations of female agency in British literature and culture in the early Enlightenment period. While critical narratives of women’s rejection of sex and/or marriage in literature of the period focus on the potential for closeted same-sex desire, I draw on the burgeoning field of early modern asexuality studies to take seriously women’s expressed desire for singleness, celibacy, chastity, and asexuality. As such, I bring to light an understudied phenomenon from the early moments of feminism, in which women, drawing on the legacy of medieval nuns, articulated singleness—and particularly vocational celibacy, an ideal which was lost in England after the Reformation—not as a restricted lifepath, but as one that opened up new pleasures, opportunities, and relational modes. In uncovering the single woman as a queer, subversive figure, I bring to light an underrecognized transhistorical strain of thought, uniting eighteenth-century women with their medieval predecessors and twenty-first-century legacy."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Celibate pleasures: convents, asexuality, and women's agency in British literature, 1660-1760"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Nazar, Hina","Pollock, Anthony","Markley, Robert","Weiss, Deborah"],"dc:creator":["Cole, Megan Elizabeth"],"dc:date":["2023-08","2023-06-22"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2025-08-01","The student, Megan Cole, accepted the attached license on 2023-06-14 at 08:22.","The student, Megan Cole, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-06-14 at 08:59.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-06-22 at 10:14.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #19422 on 2023-12-04 at 17:30:26","“Celibate Pleasures” explores the importance of singleness to conceptualizations of female agency in British literature and culture in the early Enlightenment period. 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In uncovering the single woman as a queer, subversive figure, I bring to light an underrecognized transhistorical strain of thought, uniting eighteenth-century women with their medieval predecessors and twenty-first-century legacy."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121202"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2023 Megan Cole"],"dc:subject":["Singleness","Asexuality","Women Writers","Eighteenth Century"],"dc:title":["Celibate pleasures: convents, asexuality, and women's agency in British literature, 1660-1760"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z"}