A history in half.

We need the legacy of women philosophers.

“However, since it is natural for every man to pursue his thoughts, but not possible for a single one to invent an art and at the same time to bring it to the highest perfection, his skill may be as great as it always wants to be.”

– Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched (Hrsg.): “Das 371ste Stück”, in: Der Zuschauer, Vol.5\371 (1751), S. 263-267, ediert in: Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Fuchs, Alexandra (Hrsg.).

Luise Gottsched, the wife of the German writer Johann Christoph Gottsched, was born in 1713 in Danzig, Pohlen. She was an influential scholar of the 18th century and active as a philosopher, author, translator, and even composer. Gottsched, the all-round talent, shows herself as a social critic who opposes class, bigotry and sexism.

The Conference Women and their body dedicates two sessions to arts, architecture, literature and film on the 17th of March, to discuss the influence of the female body on the arts:

Olga Gomilko, Female Body and Freedom: Controversy of Life or Social Dilemman in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations (10.00); Shira Levy, Oral Storytelling, the Female Body and Counter-Hegemonic Narrative in Grace Paley’s “Goodbye and Good Luck” (10.30); Zsuzsanna Lénárt-Muszk, Resisting Reproductive Rights Abuses: Womanhood and Motherhood in Contemporary American Short Fiction (11.00); S. Simone Spinelli, Arca as Demiurge: How she builds her own body (11.45); Noemi Fregara, Female body: a site of rebellion (12.15); Tyler D. Farmer, The Progression of 20^th Century Dance Norms as a Model of Feminist Sexual Liberation (14.00); Irene Breuer, The panoptic gaze: Female body and architectural space (14.30); and Benedetta Milani, Divine and Demonic. A Matter of Power and Femininity  (15.00).

You can still register (no registration fees) for online participation: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/21/

Interest aroused? More information about Gottsched and many other female philosophers and scientists can be found in our Directory. It gives an overview of women philosophers and scientists from approx. 2300 BCE to the 21st century. Currently, there are more than 280 names of women philosophers listed and the entries will be periodically updated with biographical information and sources for further research.

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