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Women in Philosophy — with Helena Taylor

 

 

In this episode, we have the pleasure to discuss the place of women and the perceived legitimacy of their writings in early modern philosophy. Helena Taylor is an Associate Professor in French and comparative Literature at the University of Exeter. She talks about the status of the “femme savante”, as part of her five-year research project on Cultures of Philosophy: Women Writing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, now funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Listen here:

 

Transcript and credits available here: HERE.

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Credits:

Helena Taylor’s research is supported by the European Research Council-selected Starting Grant, ‘Cultures of Philosophy: Women Writing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe’, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number EP/Y006372/1]. For more info, see:  https://culturesofphilosophy.exeter.ac.uk/

Primary texts cited

— Marie de Gournay, ‘Apologie pour celle qui écrit’, in Marie de Gournay, Œuvres complètes, ed. by Jean-Claude Arnould and others, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 2002); translation: Apology for the Woman Writing and Other Works, trans. by Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2002).

— Madeleine de Scudéry, ‘Histoire de deux caméléons’, in Nouvelles Conversations de morale (Paris: Vve de Mabre-Cramoisy, 1688), 2 vols, II, pp. 496–542. The modern edition is Madeleine de Scudéry, Histoire de deux caméléons, suivi de Description anatomique de Claude Perrault, ed. by Aude Volpilhac, with Anthony Herrel and Thierry Hoquet (Vincennes: Marchaisse, 2022).

Selected secondary Reading

— The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by Lisa Shapiro and Karen Detlefsen (Routledge, 2023)

— Conley, John J., The Suspicion of Virtue: Women Philosophers in Neoclassical France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002),

— Conroy, Derval, ed.,Women Philosophers in Early Modern France’ (Special Issue of Early Modern French Studies, 43.1 (2021))

— Dufour-Maître, Myriam, Les Précieuses: naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle, 2nd edn (Paris: Champion, 2008)

— Hayes, Julie Candler, Women Moralists in Early Modern France (Oxford University Press, 2024)

— Hutton, Sarah, ‘“Blue-eyed Philosophers Born on Wednesdays”: An Essay on Women and History of Philosophy’, in The History of Women’s Ideas, ed. by Karen Green and Ruth Hagengruber (= The Monist, 98.1 (2015)), pp. 7–20

— O’Neill, Eileen, Early Modern Women Philosophers and the History of Philosophy’, Hypatia, 20.3 (2005): 185–97

— Taylor, Helena, Women Writing Antiquity : Gender and Learning in Early Modern France (Oxford: OUP, 2024)

— Timmermans, Linda, L’Accès des femmes à la culture (1598–1715), 2nd edn (Paris: Champion, 2005)

 


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
adminnotcom (March 18, 2025). Women in Philosophy — with Helena Taylor. NOTCOM. Retrieved July 17, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13idg


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