Reasoning from the Uterus: Casanova, Women's Agency, and the Philosophy of Birth

Hypatia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-41
Author(s):  
Stella Villarmea
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Obstetric Violence ◽  
Women’S Agency

AbstractThe emerging area of philosophy of birth is invaluable, first, to diagnose fallacious assumptions about the relation between the womb and reason, and, ultimately, to challenge potentially damaging narratives with major impact on birth care. With its analysis of eighteenth-century epistemic and medical discussions about the role of the uterus in women's reasoning (or lack of reasoning), this article supports two arguments: first, that women's “flawed thinking” was a premise drawn by many modern intellectual men, one that was presented as based upon empirical evidence; and second, that the pervasive construction of the uterus as an element that renders women wild, uncontrollable, and irrational continues to influence contemporary obstetrics (and maybe even to nurture obstetric violence), even as today's medicine and science consider themselves to be free of any such prejudices.This article shows the role that Giacomo Casanova played in debunking these prejudices and presents his short manuscript on the issue as an important contribution to the literature of the Enlightenment, with its argument against women's supposed “natural” inferiority and for the idea that differences in education (rather than anatomical differences) were to blame for women's subordinate position in society.Detailed analysis of the “thinking uterus” debate illuminates the different ways in which various arguments from/by the “anti-uterine” lobby were used to justify the subordination of women: sometimes emphasizing the connection between the uterus and thought and sometimes negating it, but always concluding that women's inferiority is to be found in some known or yet-to-be-discovered anatomical, and mainly sexual, deficiency or problem.

A ‘milky mass’ and ‘uniform material’: white marble in eighteenth-century French discourses on sculpture and geology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Marthe Kretzschmar
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Grain Size ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
White Marble ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Network

Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.

scholarly journals Oude waarheden - Over de terugkeer van de klassieke oudheid in de verlichtingshistoriografie

2014 ◽  
Vol 127 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-246
Author(s):  
Wyger R.E. Velema
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Many

Since the publication of Peter Gay’s The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, scholarly interest in the classical presence in Enlightenment culture has waned. Over the past decade, however, this topic has returned to center stage. This review article discusses the ways in which recent research has contributed to the rediscovery of the classical past in the Enlightenment. It starts with an evaluation of the current reinterpretation of the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, continues with an overview of recent scholarship on the various intellectual and institutional environments in which knowledge of the classical past was acquired and transmitted, and ends with a discussion of the crucial role of the ancient world in eighteenth-century historiography and political thought. In its conclusion the article draws attention to the many ways in which recent scholarship on the eighteenth-century reception of the classics has broken new ground. It also argues that the ‘classical turn in Enlightenment studies’ is still unjustifiably neglected in general interpretations of the Enlightenment.

scholarly journals Freedom of religion, women's agency and banning the face veil: the role of feminist beliefs in shaping women's opinion

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (11) ◽  
pp. 1886-1901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda O'Neill ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Catherine Côté ◽  
Lisa Young
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Religion ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
The Face ◽  
Women’S Agency

Moderate Theology and Preaching c.1750–1800

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Actors

Through the Moderate movement, the clergy of the later eighteenth-century Church of Scotland became actively engaged with the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment. This chapter explores the role of the Moderate sermon in this process of cultural engagement, focusing on two main themes. First, it considers how Moderate sermons in the later eighteenth century conveyed an optimistic, world-affirming and highly practical set of theological teachings. For Moderate preachers, God had given individuals the innate capacity—in the form of the moral sense or conscience—that would enable them to respond actively to the divine guidance of Scripture in exercising self-control and contributing to social progress. Second, the chapter shows how Moderate sermons also proclaimed that God was active in history, using human actors, often in ways not intended by those actors, to advance the divine plan for the world, which involved progress towards a future order of peace and freedom.

scholarly journals Vides exemplars. Terciàries carmelitanes a El Carmelo Esmaltado de Roque Alberto Faci (1743)

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 241
Author(s):  
Cristina Gimeno-Maldonado
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Third Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Religiosity And Spirituality

Resum: Carmelo Esmaltado con tantas brillantes estrelles, cuantas flores terceras, fecundas de frutos de virtud y religión, cultivó y fijo en el cielo de la Santa Iglesia la venerable Orden Tercera de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, és el títol de l’obra que el carmelita aragonès Roque Alberto Faci (1684-1744) va publicar el 1743. El llibre és un tractat per als membres de la tercera ordre del Carmel en què trobem diverses biografies de terciàries carmelites. El que pretendrem a partir de l’anàlisi de la obra i les biografies, és fixar el paper de les terciàries al món carmelita. Per això, analitzarem l’objectiu de l’autor tenint en compte la religiositat i espiritualitat del segle XVIII i la projecció de la Il·lustració. Paraules clau: Carmel, Dones, Religiositat, Seglar, Terciaris Abstract: Carmelo Esmaltado con tantas brillantes estrelles, cuantas flores terceras, fecundas de frutos de virtud y religión, cultivó y fijo en el cielo de la Santa Iglesia la venerable Orden Tercera de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, is the title of the book wrote by the aragonian carmelite Roque Alberto Faci (1684-1744) published in 1743. The issue is a treaty for the members of the Third Order of Carmel where we can find several biographies of the carmelites woman of third order. What we pretend by analyzing their work and biography is to set the role of the woman of the third order in the world Carmel. For that, we aimed copyright considering religiosity and spirituality of the eighteenth century and the projection of the Enlightenment.   Keywords: Carmel, Woman, Religiosity, Secular, Tertiary

scholarly journals "I'm quite regardless what the world can say!": Marriage, Media, Agency and the New Female Coterie in the Late Eighteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rachel Boddy
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Women’S Agency

<p>The New Female Coterie was a group of disgraced upper-class women in the late eighteenth century traditionally dismissed as ‘scandalous’, ‘fallen’ or victims. This thesis re-evaluates these women, exploring the ways in which they utilised their agency to navigate divorce and separation proceedings which were designed for the benefit of men. It also investigates the constraints, such as family or wealth, that restricted their agency. The thesis further considers the ways in which the women were empowered by combining as a collective. This thesis utilises under-examined sources such as satirical cartoons, pamphlets, and The Rambler’s Magazine to show that media itself could constrain women either by side-lining women’s agency or by portraying it as a negative and dangerous thing. Media representations of the New Female Coterie provide evidence of the sex panics which, historians argue, reached their apex in the 1790s. This thesis posits instead that anxieties regarding women’s sexual behaviour originated earlier than is often suggested. By examining the under-explored women of the New Female Coterie, this thesis contributes to scholarship on female agency in the Georgian period.</p>

scholarly journals The British Museum and the Royal Academy: the nation state, English and British identities, and the constitution in the eighteenth century

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-82
Author(s):  
Sheila Watson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Royal Academy ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Arts ◽  
English National Identity

During the mid-eighteenth century two museum institutions the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts were established, the former by Parliament, the latter by artists under the patronage of the Crown. In their origins and their early development they illustrate and help shape ideas relating to the growth of the notion of Britishness and English national identity. They were the theatres in which ideas about the kind of political nation Britain imagined itself to be were played out between loyalists (supporters of a reformed monarchy) and Whigs (mistrustful of the crown and jealous of the hard won rights of Parliament). Their foundation is all the more extraordinary because they developed at a time when the arts were not generally understood to be  a matter for the state in Britain and when some powerful politicians regarded national sponsorship and support of the arts with great suspicion.This paper seeks to re-examine the origins of these two key national cultural institutions. It considers their political significance and suggests that this has been somewhat downplayed by those who focus on their development within cultural historical contexts. While not dismissing the importance of the international and national cultural arenas in which these institutions were imagined and forged, particularly the role of the Enlightenment, the paper suggests that they can only be fully understood within the context of a nation still exploring and developing a constitutional monarchical system of government and its need to present a form of Britishness to its citizens and its neighbours.

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