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Reading Group | Early Modern Women Philosophers
2 April 2025
Early Modern Women Philosophers
Reading Group
Prof. Andreas Blank (Technion)
The reading group will focus on primary texts by influential women philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thematically, many of these texts focus on the analysis of social virtues. They discuss the striving for esteem and glory, the dangers of flattery and dissimulation, the challenges of aging well, and the place of women’s rights in the context of a theory of human rights. We will read (English) texts by the French thinkers Madeleine de Scudéry, Anne-Thérèse de Lambert, Émilie Du Châtelet, and the English thinkers Mary Astell, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft. Texts by women philosophers in this period explore many different literary styles, ranging from imaginary orations to real and imaginary letters, dialogues, and essays. In addition to offering a wealth of thought-provoking ideas, all texts are a pure pleasure to read.
Our choice of texts could vary according to the interests of the participants.
| Wednesday
| 16:00-17:30
| At the Department of Humanities and Arts | Room 100, 1st floor
| Dates of the 10 meetings
April 2 – 1 # session
April 9 – 2 # session
April 16 – No session (Passover)
April 23 – 3 # session
April 30 – No session (Memorial day)
May 7 – 5 # session
May 14 – 6 # session
May 21 – 7# session
May 28 – 8 # session
June 4 – 9 # session
June 11 – 10 # session
Registration for the Reading Group Click here
About the Lecturer
Andreas Blank is a researcher at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
He is a Lady Davis Visiting Associate Professor at the Technion during the Spring semester 2025.
He has written extensively on early modern philosophy, including 5 books and 90 articles in leading journals and edited volumes.
For more details on his publications, see here: https://philpeople.org/profiles/andreas-blank