As part of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists’ Research Colloquium in the Winter Semester 2026/27, we are pleased to welcome Jil Muller, who will present her talk entitled “Maternal Bodies and Generative Fluids in Oliva Sabuco.”

Abstract: This presentation explores the understanding of the female body in the work of Oliva Sabuco, focusing on her theories of procreation and breastfeeding. Particular attention will be given to Sabuco’s reinterpretation of the “cold” female body, traditionally associated in early modern medicine with weakness and passivity. Drawing on Galenic, Hippocratic, and Avicennian traditions, Sabuco adopted the two-seeds model of generation, granting women an active and necessary role in conception. Female semen, understood as transformed chilo and characterized by coldness and humidity, becomes a productive force essential to the creation of life. At the same time, Sabuco balances this principle of coldness with the vital heat associated with blood and menstruation, presenting generation as the result of bodily equilibrium. The presentation also examines her understanding of breastfeeding, in which breastmilk functions not only as nourishment but as a determinant of the child’s physical and psychological development, thereby assigning mothers a central ethical and social responsibility

About the speaker: Jil Muller is Deputy Head of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and Postdocoral Researcher in philosophy at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Her research is twofold: on the one hand, she is interested in the medical traditions of 16th and 17th century philosophers and scientists and their understanding of the body, mechanism and humourism, with a particular focus on women thinkers. She has published articles on Descartes’ physiology and anatomy, on his correspondence with Elisabeth of Bohemia, on Montaigne’s illness and on Oliva Sabuco’s holism. On the other hand, she is working on the moral theories of women philosophers and scientists of the early modern period, such as Marie de Gournay, Sophie Germain and Émilie du Châtelet. She recently has edited three books: Women and their Body (de Gruyter 2025), Automata, Cyborgs and Mutants: Eccentric Bodies from Humanism to Transhumanism (Palgrave Macmillan 2026) and Food, Plants, Remedies and Healing Practices: Women’s Ideas in the History of Medicine (Springer Nature 2026).

If you want to participate or simply listen to the talks, please contact: contact@historyofwomenphilosophers.org