A Woman Who Defends All the Persons of Her Sex: Selected Philosophical and Moral Writings (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) - Softcover

Suchon, Gabrielle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226779211 ISBN 13: 9780226779218

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2010

Synopsis

During the oppressive reign of Louis XIV, Gabrielle Suchon (1632–1703) was the most forceful female voice in France, advocating women’s freedom and self-determination, access to knowledge, and assertion of authority. This volume collects Suchon’s writing from two works—Treatise on Ethics and Politics (1693) and On the Celibate Life Freely Chosen; or, Life without Commitments (1700)—and demonstrates her to be an original philosophical and moral thinker and writer.

Suchon argues that both women and men have inherently similar intellectual, corporeal, and spiritual capacities, which entitle them equally to essentially human prerogatives, and she displays her breadth of knowledge as she harnesses evidence from biblical, classical, patristic, and contemporary secular sources to bolster her claim. Forgotten over the centuries, these writings have been gaining increasing attention from feminist historians, students of philosophy, and scholars of seventeenth-century French literature and culture. This translation, from Domna C. Stanton and Rebecca M. Wilkin, marks the first time these works will appear in English.

About this title

About the Author

Domna C. Stanton is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.Rebecca M. Wilkin is assistant professor of French at Pacific Lutheran University.

Review

“The material content of this volume—on study and reading as the basis of intellectual life, and on the place of women outside of more traditional roles in the Ancien Régime--is of use to scholars, not just students. The translation itself is eloquent, and the work it recovers reflects a unique perspective on gender in the age of Louis XIV. The introductory essay places this important contribution into biographical and cultural perspective and clarifies a number of aspects of Suchon’s philosophy. The notes do a good job of handling the translation issues that necessarily arise in an endeavor such as this.”

(Citation from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women’s 2011 Translation and Teaching Editio)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0226779211
• ISBN 13: 9780226779218
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 448