Ideas and Society in Early Modern Europe: The Debate about Gender and Identity

 Interlocutors  Stasimachus, Timander  Sophia, Eulalia  Dissonance with Equality of the Two Sexes  male dominance: Stasimachus  reduced female role  learners, not experts  no need to learn Latin and Greek: pp. 155, 242.  education by tutor

 value of Descartes  ally against prejudice  rejected by the philosophy of the Schools = scholasticism = “a coquettish bluestocking” (243)  his philosophy: common sense, reasonable, popular  French Catholic vs. Greek pagan

 “a state of general doubt” (175)  Stasimachus: “I concluded just now that I exist, I who think, because I act” (178).  distinction between mind and body (215)  two substances: mind and body (221)  “our whole machine” (220)  Stasimachus: “To understand things is to have clear and distinct ideas of them” (223). more on “clear and distinct ideas”: pp. 224, 226, 236

 Attack on prejudice, opinion, custom  slavery (182)  truth vs. “prejudice and error” (189)  the “labor to become learned” (222)  intellectual elitism vs. “ignorant populace” (192), “mob opinion” (193), “common herd” (196), “popular science and wisdom” (200)  the value of curiosity (196-99)  “We are not only the authors of the prejudice but also its theater and its victims” (212).

 To reason is divine (184-87, )  Increasing role of women in the dialogue  Eulalia’s dream ( )  Truth as a lady (204)

 “the science of ourselves” (218, 235)  Stasimachus: “What we are trying to achieve is perfect knowledge, which consists in knowing what it is outside ourselves that corresponds to what we see within us” (209).  Timander: “We study the history of the ancients and of our neighbors, and we never think of our own. We are more curious about what is going on in distant provinces than what is going on where we are” (211)

 “the science of ourselves” (218, 235)  “a world in miniature” (222)  how “knowledge of ourselves” rescues us (232)  connection to women:  “treasure”: Sophia and Eulalia, “a portable library that we all have within us” (207)

 attack on prejudice  appeal to God (remember Suchon?)  “science of ourselves”  the “rational use of her mind” (196)  reasonable women (200)  “we don’t lack intelligence” (201)  revelation of the truth (233)  Cartesian plan for “self- knowledge” (236-38)  governing is persuading (231)

 an echo from The Equality of the Two Sexes : a woman’s advantage (250)  governing is persuading (231)

 Sophia: “My greatest satisfaction comes from learning about things and communicating them to other people” (148).  Stasimachus: “you only half understand things if you only understand them for yourself; you also have to know the art of expressing them, not only to adapt to the weakness and reach of the common people, but also to be able to communicate convincingly to them the truths you have discovered” (194).

 Eulalia: “You’re a strange man, you enjoy making people think. I am not surprised that you are a supporter of women; you have in common with them the thing that everybody finds fault with: when you get an idea in your head you make it a point of honor to see it through” (200).  Stasimachus: “Thus we can conclude that so long as we do not know what we are, we do not know anything, and that we will know everything when we know ourselves” (236).

 “Prison ‘not effective’ for women,” BBC, 23 March 2013,

1. What passages strike you as historically significant? Mark them and write them down. 2. What positions on women and gender does a given primary source take on women and gender? How does the author support these positions? 3. Can you formulate at least one historical question based on the assigned reading to start a larger discussion? 4. Can you find a few secondary sources (and other primary sources) by using the library catalogue and databases that will help you answer your historical question? 5. Can you think of any current news stories that relate to women and gender?

 Review common threads throughout the primary sources  the main objective of the source  the author’s strategy  common themes that we discussed in class, e.g.: the authority of Aristotle, women’s education, adornment / beauty, the role of religion, etc.  resonance of the source with the social contexts of early modern women and the ideas that governed these contexts  resonance of the source with gender as pointing to perceived differences between men and women or as signifying relationships of power

 Review the historical ironies evident in the sources  How do the sources depart from the mainstream of thinking about women and gender?  How might the title of a source or the explicit object of the author conflict with the contents of the source?  Review personal traces of the authors  What information about themselves do the authors “leave behind” in their works?

 Review specific passages from the sources that we discussed in class  How does the passage reflect or challenge the conventional wisdom of early modern Europe about women and gender?  How does the passage reflect gender as signifying perceived differences between men and women or relationships of power?  Review the significant information about the primary sources in the power point slides.