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Teacher: Cecilia Rosengren

The lecture introduces the early modern dispute concerning the worth and intellectual capacity, or incapacity, of women – the so-called la querelle des femmes. The discussion focuses on two voices within this this long-lasting debate – one from Italy, one from France: Moderata Fonte (1555–1592) and Marie de Gournay (1565–1645). Besides discussing their writings, we will also engage in the question of the public voice of women in a longer historical perspective with the help of the classicist Mary Beard’s manifesto on women and power from 2017.

Readings:

Moderata Fonte, “First Day” from The Worth of Women, Virginia Cox (ed. and transl.) (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 43–117. Read the editor’s introduction.
Marie le Jars de Gournay, “The Equality of Men and Women” [1622] and “The Ladies’ Complaint” [1626], Apology for the Woman Writing and other Works, Richard Hillman and Colette Quensel (eds. and transl.) (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 75–95, 97–100. Read the editor’s introduction.
Margaret L. King & Albert Rabil, Jr., ”The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series”, can be found in any book of the series The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. (Uploaded on Canvas)
Carol Pal, “Marie de Gournay, Marie du Moulin, and Anna Maria van Schurman: constructing intellectual kinship”, Republic of Women. Rethinking the Republic of letters in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 78–97 (Uploaded on Canvas)
Mary Beard, Women and Power. A Manifesto (London: Profile Books, 2017), pp. 1–144