ROME – The Keats-Shelley House in Rome will receive Elisabetta Strickland next Thursday for a talk entitled ‘The Ascent of Mary Somerville in Nineteenth Century Society.’ The talk will be an opportunity to go back to a time when study and research were forbidden to women and focus on the struggle of one woman who defied such oppressive laws.

 The conference will be held in the afternoon by Elisabetta Strickland, Full Professor of Algebra at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. She also was Vice-President of the National Institute of Advanced Mathematics from 2007 to 2015.

 Strickland herself plays an important role in women's access to science since she is member of the Women in Mathematics Committee of the European Mathematical Society, co-founder of the Gender Interuniversity Observatory and Ambassador to Italy in the Committee of Women of the International Mathematical Union.

 Mary Fairfax Somerville was a Scottish scientist and popular writer who fought for equal rights and opportunities for women in the nineteenth century.

 Sommerville was not fighting for a particular political plan nor to impact people with her words or action, but to prove to the scientific sphere that she was equally as competent as her male counterparts by earning their respect.

 All she had ever learnt was self-taught since she had barely received education as a child.

 Her talent in the fields of mathematics and science gave further backing to the struggle towards education opportunities for women, leading to their access to schools.

 The Somerville College in Oxford owes her name in her honour, and formed famous graduates: from Vera Brittain to Margaret Thatcher.

 The house in which John Keats died was bought in 1906 for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association and is now a museum dedicated to the English Romantic poets.

Keats-Shelley House, Piazza di Spagna, 26, 00187 Roma
Salone
Thursday 6 July at 5 PM
Price is included in the entrance ticket
   Adults (up to the age of 65) €5.00
   Under 18s and 65s or over €4.00
Booking recommended (info@ksh.roma.it/ +39 06 678 42 35)