In this episode, Jacinta Shrimpton speaks with Katie Brennan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Salve Regina University, about the 19th-century German feminist philosopher Hedwig Dohm. Brennan speaks about Dohm’s diverse philosophical modes, from salon-hosting to political essays to novellas, and how her participation in the urgent and burgeoning feminist discourse of her time shaped her philosophical approach. Dohm draws on distinct areas of philosophy, such as rights and existentialism, leading to a unique conception of human nature that Brennan is currently in the process of reconstructing. We speak about several of Dohm’s texts, with ongoing reference to her novella Become Who You Are, which still resonates today. Finally, Brennan wraps up the episode with some research advice, and reflections on the methodological challenges she’s faced while researching the under-served Dohm.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

References
Works by Kate Brennan
Brennan, Katie. “The Nihilism of the Oppressed: Hedwig Dohm’s Feminist Critique of Nietzschean Nihilism.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 52, no. 2 (2021): 209–33. https://doi.org/10.5325/jnietstud.52.2.0209.

Works by Hedwig Dohm referenced in the episode
Dohm, Hedwig. Der Frauen Natur und Recht zur Frauenfrage, zwei Abhandlungen über Eigenschaften und Stimmrecht der Frauen. Berlin: Wedekind & Schweiger, 1876.
 
Dohm, Hedwig, and Elizabeth G Ametsbichler. Become Who You Are. 1st ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012.

Other works referenced in the episode
Beauvoir, Simone de, Constance Borde, and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. The Second Sex. 1st American ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
 
Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice : Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2007. 
 
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty, Utilitarianism, and Other Essays. Edited by Mark Philp and F. Rosen. New edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 
 
Nassar, Dalia, and Gjesdal, Kristin, eds. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century : The German Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2021. Accessed April 21, 2025. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[See chapters: Hedwig Dohm, Clara Zetkin, Lou Salomé, and Rosa Luxemburg]
 
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morality and Other Writings. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Translated by Carol Diethe. Third edition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
 
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Duncan Large. Ecce Homo : How to Become What You Are. Oxford ; Oxford University Press, 2007.
 

In this episode, Nan Lin speaks with Getty Lustila, Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Northeastern University, about the work of Sophie de Grouchy, an 18th and early 19th century philosopher whose contributions to moral and political thought have often been overlooked. Best known for her translation of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Grouchy didn’t just translate—she developed her own ideas on sympathy, ethics, and politics in The Letters on Sympathy. The discussion explores Grouchy’s place in the sentimentalist tradition, her engagement with questions of morality and human nature, and why her work matters for understanding the history of ethics. We discuss how she builds on and departs from Smith’s ideas, the role of sympathy in shaping moral and political life, and the broader intellectual context in which she was writing.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

References

Work referenced in the episode
Grouchy, S. (2019) Letters on Sympathy: A Critical Engagement with Adam Smith’s ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’, trans. and ed. S. Bergès and E. Schliesser, New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Works by Getty Lustila
Getty L. (2023). “Remorse and Moral Progress in Sophie de Grouchy's Letters on Sympathy.” In Karen Detlefsen & Lisa Shapiro, The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 584-596.
——— (2023). “Sophie de Grouchy on the Problem of Economic Inequality.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 61 (1):112-132.
 
Literature on de Grouchy
Bréban, L. and J. Dellemotte. (2017) “From One form of Sympathy to Another: Sophie de Grouchy’s Translation of and Commentary on Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments,” History of Political Economy 49: 667–707.
Bergès, S. (2015a) “Is Motherhood Compatible with Political Participation? Sophie de Grouchy’s Care Based Republicanism,” Ethical Theory and Practice 18: 47–60.
——— (2015b) “Sophie de Grouchy on the Cost of Domination in the Letters on Sympathy and Two Anonymous Articles in Le Republicain,” The Monist 98: 102–12.
——— (2016) “Wet Nursing and Political Participation: The Republican Approaches to Motherhood of Mary Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy,” in S. Bergès and A. Coffee (eds.), The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 201–18.
——— (2018) “Family, Gender, and Progress: Sophie de Grouchy and Her Exclusion in the Publication of Condorcet’s Sketch of Human Progress,” Journal of the History of Ideas 79(2): 267–83.
——— (2019) “Revolution and Republicanism: Women Political Philosophers of Late Eighteenth Century France and Why They Matter,” Australasian Philosophy Review 3(4): 350–70.
Halldenius, L. 2019. “De Grouchy, Wollstonecraft, and Smith on Sympathy, Inequality, and Rights.” Australasian Philosophical Review 3(4): 381–91.
Malherbe, M. (2015) “From Scotland to France: From Smith’s sympathy to Grouchy’s Sensibilité,” in J. François Dunyach and A. Thomson (eds.), The Enlightenment in Scotland: National and International Perspectives, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, pp. 139–51.
Riskin, J. (2002) The Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1979) Emile: Or, on Education, ed. and trans. A. Bloom, New York: Basic Books.
——— (1997). The Discourses and Early Political Writings, ed. V. Gourevitch, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schliesser, E. (2017) “Sophie de Grouchy, the Tradition(s) of Two Liberties, and the Missing Mother(s) of Liberalism,” in J. Broad and K. Detlefsen (eds.), Women and Liberty, 1600–1800: Philosophical Essays, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 109–22.
Smith, A. (1985) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Tegos, S. (2013). “Sympathie moral et tragédie sociale: Sophie Grouchy lectrice d’Adam Smith.” Noesis 21: 265–92.
——— (2019). “Excluding Manners and Deference from the Post Revolution Republic: Sophie de Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy on the Conditions of Non-Domination.” Australasian Philosophy Review 3(4): 413–21.

In this episode, we are happy to welcome Lauren Kopajtic, whose work explores the profound connection between literature and moral philosophy. Lauren shares her insights into how novels and plays—from the works of Joanna Baillie to Jane Austen—stimulate moral imagination and contribute to moral education. Together, we discuss key ideas like “sympathetic curiosity” and the cognitive and psychological capacities that literature cultivates, helping us better understand human character and moral judgment. Lauren also highlights the philosophical influences behind her research, including the moral philosophy of Adam Smith, and how these ideas resonate in literary studies. Whether you’re a lover of literature, a student of philosophy, or simply curious about the educational power of stories, this conversation offers thought-provoking perspectives on how art shapes our ethical lives.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

References
 
Novels (recommend by Lauren)
Jane Austen: Emma (1815) and Persuasion (1817)
Frances Burney: Evelina (1778)
 
Secondary literature at the intersection of literature and philosophy
Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
—————— . How Novels Think: The Limits of Individualism from 1719-1900. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Benedict, Barbara M. Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
—————— . Framing Feeling: Sentiment and Style in English Prose Fiction 1745–1800. AMS Press, 1994.
Brewer, John. The Pleasures of the Imagination. Routledge, 1997.
E. M. Dadlez. Mirrors to One Another: Emotion and Value in Jane Austen and David Hume. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2009.
Jenny Davidson. Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
DeLucia, JoEllen. A Feminine Enlightenment: British Women Writers and the Philosophy of Progress, 1759-1820. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
François, Anne-Lise. Open Secrets: The Literature of Uncounted Experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.
Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.
Johnson, Claudia L. Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the 1790s: Wollstonecraft, Radcliffe, Burney, Austen. University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Peter Knox-Shaw, Jane Austen and the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Wendy Anne Lee, Failures of Feeling: Insensibility and the Novel. Stanford University Press, 2019.
Lynch, Deidre Shauna. The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Manganaro, Thomas Salem. Against Better Judgment: Irrational Action and Literary Invention in the Long Eighteenth Century. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2022.
Marsden, Jean I. Theatres of Feeling: Affect, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Marshall, David. The Figure of Theater: Shaftesbury, Defoe, Adam Smith, and George Eliot. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Marshall, David. The Surprising Effects of Sympathy: Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
McKeever, Gerard Lee. Dialectics of Improvement. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
Morgan, Susan. In the Meantime: Character and Perception in Jane Austen’s Fiction. University of Chicago Press, 1980.
John Mullan. Sentiment and Sensibility: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1988.
Pinch, Adela. Strange Fits of Passion: Epistemologies of Emotion, Hume to Austen. Stanford University Press, 1996.
Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen. University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Patricia Spacks, Privacy: Concealing the Eighteenth-Century Self. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Yousef, Nancy. Romantic Intimacy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.

In this episode, Nan Lin speaks with Ruth Boeker, Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, about Catharine Trotter Cockburn, an influential moral philosopher from the early modern period. Boeker introduces Cockburn’s life and work, discussing her own interest in Cockburn and what makes her a key figure in early modern philosophy. The discussion explores Cockburn’s views on human nature, moral motivation, morality’s ties to religion, and her thoughts on education. Boeker also addresses current scholarship on Cockburn, highlighting both well-studied and under-explored areas. Finally, Boeker leads us through Cockburn’s views on education and moral philosophy. This conversation offers a chance to appreciate the depth and lasting relevance of Cockburn’s philosophy.
 
To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

References
 
Works by Cockburn
Cockburn, Catharine Trotter. Philosophical Writings. Edited by Patricia Sheridan. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006.
—————. The Works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn. Edited by Thomas Birch. 2 vols. London: Printed for J. and P. Knapton, 1751.

The podcast also mentions the following other writings by Cockburn:

• “On the Usefulness of Schools and Universities, for the Improvement of the Mind, in Right Notions of God."
  
• “Letter of Advice to her Son."
  

Both are included in Birch’s edition of Cockburn’s Works (1751).
 
Works by Boeker
Boeker, Ruth. Catharine Trotter Cockburn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
—————. “Catharine Trotter Cockburn against Theological Voluntarism." In Varieties of Voluntarism in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Sonja Schierbaum and Jörn Müller, 251–270. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.
—————. “Watts and Trotter Cockburn on the Power of Thinking." In Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Sebastian Bender and Dominik Perler, 286–304. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2024.

For additional literature on Catharine Trotter Cockburn, please see PhilPapers:
https://philpapers.org/browse/catharine-trotter-cockburn

In this episode, Jacinta speaks with Aminah Hasan-Birdwell, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Emory University, about 18th-century Fante-British abolitionist and philosopher Ottobah Cugoano. We focus on his essay Thoughts and Sentiments, discussing its broad-ranging and interconnected critique of slavery, law, labor, and colonization. Hasan-Birdwell considers the breadth of Cugoano’s perspective, explaining that he takes into account not only the suffering of the individual, but also the health of society, examining not just British society but the morality of nations across the globe. Hasan-Birdwell concludes the episode by offering advice to early-career scholars commencing research on similarly marginalized philosophers.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page. 
 
References

Works by Cugoano
Cugoano, Olaudah Ottobah. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings. Edited by Vincent Carretta. New York: Penguin, 1999.
 
Works by Hasan-Birdwell
Hasan-Birdwell, Aminah. “Ottobah Cugoano on Chattel Slavery and the Moral Limitations of Ius Gentium.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32, no. 3 (2024): 473–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2024.2307338.

Hasan-Birdwell, Aminah. “‘That Sottish and Selfish principle': Cugoano on Self-Interest, Imagination, and Moral Wrongdoing." Journal of Modern Philosophy (forthcoming).

Other works mentioned
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Cicero: On Moral Ends. Edited by Julia Annas. Translated by Raphael Woolf. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
 
Clarkson, Thomas. An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African. 2nd ed., considerably enlarged. London: J. Phillips, 1788.
 
Hindle, Steve. “Work, Reward and Labour Discipline in Late Seventeenth-Century England.” Chapter. In Remaking English Society: Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England, edited by Steve Hindle, Alexandra Shepard, and John Walter, 255–80. Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013.
 
Ramsay, James. An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. Cambridge Library Collection – Slavery and Abolition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Tobin, James. Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay’s Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. By a Friend to the West India Colonies, and Their Inhabitants. London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1785.

In this episode Nan Lin speaks with Dr. Elena Gordon, a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at McGill University, about 18th century philosopher Catharine Macaulay. We principally focus on her philosophy of education and explore Macaulay’s dual role as a historian and philosopher, her views on reason, sympathy, and the relationship between humans and animals, as well as her unique stance on educational reform. Dr. Gordon also reflects on Macaulay’s feminist perspective and offers advice for young researchers interested in reviving the voices of forgotten thinkers.
 
References

Works by Macaulay:
Macaulay, Catharine. The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay, K. Green (ed.), New York:
Oxford University Press, 2019.

— Letters on Education with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects(1790), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
— A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, London: A. Hamilton, 1783.

— Observations on a pamphlet entitled ‘Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents’” 2nd ed., corrected. London: Dilly, 1770.

— The history of England from the accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, 8 vols. London, 1763–1783.

— Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be found in Mr. Hobbes Rudiments of Government and Society. London: T. Davies, 1767.
 
Other works mentioned:
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, or On Education, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 13, (ed. and trans.) C. Kelly and A. Bloom (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992).

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed., edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
        --The History of Great Britain. Vol. I. Containing the Reigns of James I and Charles I. Edinburgh, Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and                  Neill, 1754.
​
Cobbe, Frances Power. Essays on the Pursuits of Women. Also, a Paper on Female Education. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Coffee, Alan. “Catharine Macaulay” in S. Bergès, E. Hunt Botting, A. Coffee (ed.) The Wollstonecraftian Mind, (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 198-210.

Frazer, Elizabeth., “Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay on education”, Oxford Review of Education, 37:5, 603-617, 2011.
Green, Karen. Catharine Macaulay’s Republican Enlightenment, New York: Routledge, 2020.

Greentree, Shane. “The “Equal Eye” of Compassion: Reading Sympathy in Catharine Macaulay’s History of England” Eighteenth-Century Studies 52 (2019), pp. 299-318.

Hill, Bridget. The republican virago: the life and times of Catharine Macaulay, historian, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Hutton, Sarah. “Virtue, God, and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay” in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer 2007, pp. 137-148.

Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Edited by John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton. A Clarendon Press Publication. 2000.

Reuter, Martina. “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will”, in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer, 2007, pp. 149-169.
​
Titone, Connie. Gender Equality in the Philosophy of Education: Catharine Macaulay’s Forgotten Contribution, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page. 
 

In this episode, Jacinta Shrimpton speaks with Kristin Gjesdal, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, about 19th century philosopher Germaine de Staël. We discuss Staël’s account of the passions, with a focused look at fanaticism and happiness, followed by a discussion of her abolitionism, and whether Staël could be classified as the first existentialist. The episode concludes with Gjesdal’s reflections on how to include Staël in history of philosophy courses, together with her advice to scholars (particularly early career scholars) who are interested in beginning to research understudied figures.

Bibliography
​
Listed chronologically, by publishing date
 
1788 - Letters on the works and character of J.J. Rousseau
1795 – Essay on Fictions
           Three abolitionist novellas: 1) Mirza or letter from a traveller (written 9 years earlier)      
                                                           2) Adelaide and Theodore
                                                           3) The story of Pauline
1796 - Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations
1800 – ‘On Women Writers’, a chapter from The Influence of Literature on Society
1807 – Corinne or Italy
1813 – Reflections on Suicide
 
Other Works Mentioned
 
Beauvoir, Simone de, Constance. Borde, and Sheila. Malovany-Chevallier. The Second Sex. 1st American ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. “Germaine de Staël on Passions, Politics, and Fanaticism.” In Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy, 1st ed., 143–60. Routledge, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032128207-13.
 
Ibsen, Henrik, and E. (Emanuel) Haldeman-Julius. A Doll’s House. 1st ed. Waiheke Island: The Floating Press, 1923.
 
Jameson-Cemper, K, George Solovieff, and Anne Louise Germaine de Stael. “Letter to Jefferson.” Selected Correspondence. 368. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4283-0.
 
Forthcoming
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. Germaine de Staël (under contract with CUP)
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. How to be a Self. Four Lessons from Germaine de Staël (under contract with OUP)
 
Further Reading
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. “When Henrik Ibsen put ‘philosophers in skirts’ into his plays, he demonstrated a different way of thinking about the world.” Psyche. Published 9 November 2022. https://psyche.co/ideas/why-did-ibsen-put-philosophers-in-skirts-up-on-the-stage
 
Nassar, Dalia, and Kristin Gjesdal, eds. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century : The German Tradition. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2021.
 
 
To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.
 

​In this episode, Haley speaks with Shuchen Xiang, professor of philosophy at Xidian University, about her new book, “Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea”. In discussing the book, we talk about historical Chinese accounts of a metaphysics of harmony, and how that metaphysics of harmony informs thinking about social identity and difference. We also discuss the aims and process of comparative philosophy. 

You can listen to the podcast episode here.
 
Bibliography 
Alcoff, Linda Martín. “Philosophy and Philosophical Practice: Eurocentrism as an Epistemology 
of Ignorance.” In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, edited by Ian James Kidd,
José Medina, and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., 397–408. London: Routledge, 2017.
 
Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical
Interpretation of the Zhongyong. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001.
 
Baldwin, James. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. New York: Library of America, 1998.
 
Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern 
World. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1959.
 
Isaac, Benjamin. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2004.
 
Kang, David C. East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. New York 
Columbia University Press, 2010.
 
Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1964.
 
Xiang, Shuchen. A Philosophical Defense of Culture: Perspectives from Confucianism and Cassirer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021.
 
Xiang, Shuchen. Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton 
University Press, 2023.  


To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

​In this episode, Haley speaks with Huaping Lu-Adler, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, about her new book titled Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. In the course of our conversation about the book, we discuss what it means to philosophize from a particular perspective, the compatibility of Kant's moral theory and his racist claims, the ways that our contemporary philosophical canon has its origins in Kant's writings, and the importance of community for philosophical work. 

Allais, Lucy. 2016. “Kant’s Racism.” Philosophical Papers 45 (1–2): 1–36.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2001. “Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race.” Race, edited by Robert Bernasconi, 11–36. Oxford: Blackwell. 
Bernasconi, Robert. 2002. “Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism.” In Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, edited by Julie Ward and Tommy Lott, 145–66. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mills, Charles. 2005. “Kant’s Untermenschen.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, edited by Andrew Valls, 169–93. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Mills, Charles. 2014. “Kant and Race, Redux.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35 (1–2): 125–57.
Park, Peter. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany: SUNY Press.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2022. “Kant on Lazy Savagery, Racialized.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2): 253–75.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2023. Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. New York & London: Oxford University Press. 

To list to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

In this episode, Olivia speaks with Allauren Samantha Forbes, an assistant professor in philosophy and gender and social justice at McMaster University. We discuss the thought of the French philosopher and novelist Madeleine de Scudéry, who lived from 1607 to 1701. Though most historians of philosophy know Scudéry for her later philosophical dialogues, our conversation focuses on an earlier publication: 1642’s Illustrious Women or Heroic Harangues. Allauren argues that this collection of fictional speeches by real women from antiquity – all of whom are limited in some way by hierarchical power structures – is an educational philosophical text that articulates various manifestations of patriarchal power and exemplifies ways of subverting it. We also talk about ideas for teaching Scudéry and Allauren’s own background as a philosopher working in the history of feminism. 

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

Bibliography

Selected texts by Scudéry

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres, ou Les harangues héroïques, 2 vols., Paris: Quiney et de Sercy, 1644. (French edition)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres or The heroick harangues of the illustrious women written in French by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Scuddery governour of Nostre Dam. Translated by James Innes. Edinburgh: printed by Thomas Brown James Glen and John Weir book sellers, anno Adom. 1681. Available at http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A58878.0001.001. (17th-century partial English translation)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues, edited and translated by Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson. In The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. (21st-century scholarly partial translation)

Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology, edited by Lisa Shapiro and Marcy P. Lascano. Broadview Press, 2021. (Textbook that contains translated excerpts of some of Scudéry’s works)


Other texts mentioned

Astell, Mary. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke & Duchess of Mazarine’s Case; which is also consider’d. London: Printed for John Nutt near Stationers-Hall, 1700.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.