The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy by Brill, Sara; McKeen, Catherine;

Short description:

An essential reference source for cutting-edge scholarship on women/gender and philosophy in Greek antiquity. The volume features original research that crosses disciplines, offering readers an accessible guide to new methods, new sources, and new questions in the study of ancient Greek philosophy and its multiple afterlives.

Long description:

The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy is an essential reference source for cutting-edge scholarship on women, gender, and philosophy in Greek antiquity. The volume features original research that crosses disciplines, offering readers an accessible guide to new methods, new sources, and new questions in the study of ancient Greek philosophy and its multiple afterlives.

Comprising 40 chapters from a diverse international group of experts, the Handbook considers questions about women and gender in sources from Greek antiquity spanning the period from 7th c. BCE to 2nd c. BCE, and in receptions of Greek antiquity from the Roman Imperial period, through the European Renaissance to the current day. Chapters are organized into five major sections:

I. Early Greek antiquity – including Sappho, Presocratic philosophy, Sophists, and Greek tragedy – 700s–400s BCE
II. Classical Greek antiquity – including Aeschines, Plato, and Xenophon – 400s–300s BCE
III. Late Classical Greek to Hellenistic antiquity – including Cyrenaics, Cynics, the Hippocratic corpus, and Aristotle – 300s–200s BCE
IV. Late Greek antiquity to Roman Imperial period – including Pythagorean women, Stoics, Pyrrhonian Skeptics, and late Platonists – 200s BCE to 700s CE
V. Later receptions – including Shakespeare, the European Renaissance, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B. DuBois, Jane Harrison, Sarah Kofman, and Toni Morrison

The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy is a vital resource for students and scholars in philosophy, Classics, and gender studies who want to gain a deeper understanding of philosophy’s rich past and explore sources and questions beyond the traditional canon. The volume is a valuable resource, as well, for students and scholars from history, humanities, literature, political science, religious studies, rhetorical studies, theatre, and LGBTQ and sexuality studies.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
Sara Brill and Catherine McKeen

Part I: 700-400s BCE

2. The Way Up and Down: Liminal Agency in The Homeric Hymns and Presocratic Philosophy
Jessica Elbert Decker

3. Sappho of Lesbos and the Time of Erosophy
Chelsea C. Harry

1. Sex, Family, and Chthonic Justice: On the Cosmology of the Choephoroi – Kalliopi Nikolopoulou (SUNY Buffalo)










2. Euripides on "Women’s Rights?" Natural Philosophy and Epistemic Justice in the Fragments of Melanippē Sophē and Desmōtis – Dorota Dutsch (UC Santa Barbara)










3. On Not–Believing: A Gorgianic Reading of the Tragic Cassandra – Maria Cecília de Miranda Nogueira Coelho (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)










4. The Correctness of Grammatical Gender in the Sophistic Tradition – Chloe Balla (University of Crete)







II. 370s-340s BCE









5. Eis gynaikos andra: Aeschines on Women, Eros, and Politics– Francesca Pentassuglio (Sapienza University of Rome)










6. ‘By Zeus,’ Said Theodote: Women as Interlocutors and Performers in Xenophon’s Philosophical Writings – Carol Atack (University of Cambridge)










7. Women in Xenophon’s Socratic Works – David M. Johnson (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)










8. Socrates’ Laughing Bodies: Women and Comedy in Plato’s Phaedo – Sonja Tanner (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)










9. Plato’s Argument for the Inclusion of Women in the Guardian Class: Prospects and Problems – Emily Hulme (University of Sydney)










10. Women, Spirit, and Authority in Plato and Aristotle – Patricia Marechal (University of California, San Diego)










11. Plato on Women and the Private Family– Rachel Singpurwalla (University of Maryland)










12. Plato’s Scientific Feminism: Collection and Division in Republic V’s "First Wave" – John Proios (University of Chicago) and Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell University)










13. Weaving Politics in Plato’s Statesman – Jill Frank (Cornell University) and Sarah Greenberg (Cornell University)










14. Midwifery as Metaphor in Plato’s Theaetetus – Marina Berzins McCoy (Boston College)










15. Divine Names and the Mystery of Diotima’s Eponymy – Danielle Layne (Gonzaga University)










16. Sexual Differentiation and What it Means to be Human in Timaeus – Jill Gordon (Colby College)







　III. 330s-320s BCE









17. Cyrenaics on Philosophical Education and Gender – Katharine R. O'Reilly (Toronto Metropolitan University)










18. Wives or Philosophers? Hipparchia and the Cynic Criticism of Gendered Economics – Malin Grahn-Wilder (University of Jyväskylä)










19. Diagnosing Aristotle’s Sexism – Charlotte Witt (UNH)










20. Women in Ancient Medical Texts as Sources of Knowledge in Aristotle – Mariska Leunissen (University of North Carolina)










21. Aristotle’s Hylomorphism Reconsidered Through Aristotle’s Account of Generation – Adriel M. Trott (Wabash College)










22. The Role of the Female in Aristotle's Teleology of Reproduction – Ana Laura Edelhoff (University of Konstanz)










23. Aristotle on Women’s Virtues – Sophia Connell (University of London)










24. What is wrong with women. Aristotle’s paradigm of gender, and its anomalies – Giulia Sissa (UCLA)







　IV. 320s BCE-400s CE









25. Pythagorean Women: An Example of Female Philosophical Protreptics– Caterina Pellò (University of Geneva)










26. Women in Stoicism – Jula Wildberger (American University of Paris)










27. Pyrrhonian Skepticism on Gender and Virtue– Christiana Olfert (Tufts University)










28. The Reception of Diotima in Later Platonism: Clea, Sosipatra and Asclepigeneia – Crystal Addey (University College Cork)










29. The Place of Women in the Neoplatonic Schools – Alexandra Michalewski (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)










30. The School of Hypatia and the Problem of the Gendered Soul – Aistė Čelkytė (Leiden University)







　V. Later receptions






　The Worth of Women: the Reception of Ancient Debates in the Renaissance – Marguerite Deslauriers (McGill University)











31. Philosopher Queens and a Female Prospero(a): Plato’s Republic and Shakespeare’s Tempest – Arlene Saxonhouse (University of Michigan)










32. "Possessed, Magical, and Dangerous to Handle": Jane Harrison, Nietzsche, and the Maenad Chorus– Laura McClure (University of Wisconsin-Madison)










33. Women’s Work: Exploring a Transhistorical Tradition of Inquiry with W. E. B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Aristotle – Harriet Fertik (The Ohio State University)










34. Sarah Kofman: Socratic Lover – Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina)










35. What Does it Mean to Decolonially Ruminate on a Classic? Medea, Sethe, and la Llorona – Andrés Fabián Henao Castro　(University of Massachusetts Boston)










36. Eros, the Elusive? A Dialogue on Plato’s Symposium, Diotima and Women in Ancient Philosophy – Mariana Ortega (Pennsylvania State University) and a companion