Abstract
Since Pomeroy’s 1975 seminal book, scholarship on women in ancient Greece has been growing steadily, but no comprehensive work explores the role of women intellectuals. By introducing this category, WInGS aims to launch a Greek “intellectual history of women” based on female intellectual activities, independent from male paradigms. WInGS challenges and qualifies the master narrative that depicts ancient Greece as a quintessentially chauvinist society. It does so by showing that female paradigms inform the Platonic tradition, something that, in turn, offers a vantage point to explore the social patterns shared by poetesses, priestesses and women philosophers. In addition to the traditional tools of classical philology and the history of philosophy, with a particular focus on linguistic analysis, intertextuality and historical sociology, WInGS relies on novel approaches such as what is currently referred to as the “intellectual history of women” as well as, in terms of potential scientific impact, intervisuality, a methodology that the unit-leaders are currently applying to Classics. Three main research questions are expected to bring about research advances: 1) Who were women intellectuals? 2) What was their social/family context? 3) What was their audience? Answering these questions will result in a fresh understanding of women poets as well as in a model of what may be called an anti-Aristotelian history of Greek philosophy, one in which women play a surprisingly influential role. On one hand, this amounts to challenging and qualifying the boundaries between the history of philosophy and literature, in a way that has momentous consequences for our assessment of women’s roles in Greek society. On the other, it entails a careful negotiation between the boundaries between orality and literacy as well as between fictional and “real” voices. Such a framework paves the way for a historically informed history of women intellectuals in Greece. In turn, this can result in a significant impact on related fields and historical periods and favourably influence the current debate on the relevance of classics. In terms of social and economic impact, the project can help increase a shared awareness on gender issues in the market of intellectual work. Outreach initiatives are integral to the team’s objectives, and the project’s afterlife includes a database designed as a repository for the team’s work as well as a way to encourage active citizenship in the study of the modern reception of, and creative writing about, Greek intellectual women. A clear area of strength is an exceptionally tight-knit team of like-minded unit-leaders working on complementary areas. As well as producing their own first-order outputs in terms of publications and international gatherings, the three unit-leaders will hire three early-career scholars, who will both contribute to and benefit from WInGS. Hopefully, they will take flight along with the project.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Lucia Floridi
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica
Coordinator:
Università degli Studi di MILANO(Italy)
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 59.596,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
17/10/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
