Episode 172 – The Secret Codes of Sixteenth-Century Women with Vanessa Braganza

August 30, 2022 by Natalie

“Symbols and ciphers… [have] the power to liberate people’s voices.”
~ Vanessa Braganza

Guest Bio

Vanessa (‘V.M.’) Braganza is a public intellectual and book detective, and a PhD candidate in English at Harvard. Her research has been profiled in the New York Times, The Timesof London, and Smithsonian Magazine.Her writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Mental Floss, and the LA Review of Books. Her academic work has appeared in a variety of scholarly journals and volumes, including the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Women’s Writing in English (Sept. 2022). She is represented by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). She is currently writing her first book, entitled The Secret-Seekers: Renaissance Writers and the Birth of Code.

Braganza’s work rewrites the history we think we know. Through intensive, real-world sleuthing, she aims to uncover voices from the past that have gone unheard till today, including those of women. History is not simply a collection of facts: it is a series of choices. It reflects what we choose to see and value. Braganza’s detective work aims to expand society’s vision of who is worthy of recognition.

A curator whose past work includes programming at the Library of Congress, Braganza was the lead curator of the exhibit 500 Years of Women Authors, Authorizing Themselves on display at Harvard’s Houghton Library in Spring 2022 and also digitally browsable.

Formerly an Echols Scholar, Braganza graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Medieval and Renaissance Literature from the University of Virginia. She is a member of the Foundation of St. John’s College, Cambridge, where she earned her MPhil with Distinction in Renaissance Literature. In 2022, she was named a Harvard Horizons Scholar and a Bowdoin Prize recipient. She is also a JD candidate at Columbia Law School where she specializes in constitutional law and voting rights.

Natalie Grueninger speaks with Vanessa Braganza about the secret codes of sixteenth-century women.

Tune in to hear Natalie and Vanessa discuss:

– The development of cryptography during the sixteenth century

– The cipher that Vanessa recently decoded linked to Katherine of Aragon

– Mary Queen of Scots’ uses of ciphers

– Steganography and how it was used during the sixteenth century

– Tips for decoding hidden messages

Listen Now!