The Figure of the Female Philosopher in Early Modern Europe

The Cultures of Philosophy project team is delighted to announce the programme for our conference ‘The Figure of the Female Philosopher in Early Modern Europe’, June 4-5, Knightley Building, University of Exeter. Attendance is free, but places are in-person only and offered on a first-come, first-served basis: sign up by May 16 here.

Thursday 4 June

PANEL 1: SATIRE AND PRAISE

JACQUELINE BROAD Monash University
Mary Astell on Ridicule and Honour

PHILIPPE CHOMÉTY Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès
Beauty, Virtue and Knowledge: Figures of Learned Women in Seventeenth-Century Poetry

SANDRA PLASTINA Università della Calabria
Self-Representation in Urania by Giulia Bigolina

PANEL 2: SELF-PRESENTATION AND GENRE

LIEKE VAN DEINSEN & KAREN HOLLEWAND KU Leuven & University of Groningen
Rethinking the femme savante: the case of Isabella de Moerloose (1661-after 1712)

ANIK WALDOW University of Sydney
Marie de Gournay on Intellectual Courage, Female Solidarity, and
Social Change

SANDRINE BERGÈS University of York
To philosophize is to act: Anne Dacier’s translation of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.

ROUNDTABLE 1: SELF-PRESENTATION AND GENRE

MARGUERITE DESLAURIERS, LIEKE VAN DEINSEN AND KAREN
HOLLEWAND
McGill University, KU Leuven & University of Groningen

ROUNDTABLE 2: WHAT’S IN A NAME? TERMINOLOGY
AND IDENTITY

CATHERINE EVANS, FELICITY HENDERSON, CARLOTTA MORO, HELENA TAYLOR AND FLORIS VERHAART
University of Exeter

Friday 5 June

PANEL 3: DISCIPLINES, TRADITIONS & INSTITUTIONS 

SABRINA EBBERSMEYER University of Copenhagen
Bright, Bold, and Pious – Writing a philosophical treatise under oppressive conditions: Birgitte Thott and her treatise “On the path to a happy life ” (c. 1659)

FLORIS VERHAART University of Exeter
Between Human and Divine Knowledge: The Reception of Anna Maria van Schurman among Lutheran German Scholars

RUTH BOEKER University College Dublin
Spaces for Learning outside Institutional Settings: Insights from the Cockburn-Arbuthnot Correspondence

EMILIO MARIA DE TOMMASO Università IUL
Same Species, Different Ideas: Why Women Are Better than Men According to Lucrezia Marinella

PRIMARY SOURCES: DISCUSSION

FUTURE PLANS & CLOSE

The conference is supported by ‘Cultures of Philosophy: Women Writing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe’, a project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number EP/Y006372/1].

Programme détaillé