Women Thinkers in Antiquity and the Middle Ages - SD

The series ends with a look at Christine de Pizan and her response to misogynistic medieval literature, focusing especially on her role in the debate over Jean de Meun’s poem Romance of the Rose.

In this episode we examine late medieval English mysticism as a context for the work of the famous anchorite Julian of Norwich, and discuss her remarkable response to the problem of why there is evil in the world.

The most daring woman medieval philosopher was Marguerite Porete, whose teachings in her Mirror of Simple Souls led to her being executed in Paris at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

In this episode we learn about the writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch, Beguine mystics who wrote respectively in medieval German and medieval Dutch and used the tropes of courtly love poetry to describe their relation to God.

Two great women philosophers of the twelfth century: Heloise, the student and lover of Peter Abelard, and the visionary mystic and natural philosopher Hildegard of Bingen.

The role of women intellectuals in Islam, focusing on the medieval period: the role of women in transmitting religious knowledge, and the achievements of female mystics (Sufis) like Rabi‘a.

We turn from ancient European culture to ancient India, and discuss the presentation of women sages in the Upanisads and a passage of the Mahabharata, in which a female mystic named Sulabha refutes a king’s pretensions to wisdom.

A number of late antique texts depict women engaged in philosophical debate, including the pagan martyr, mathematician, and philosopher Hypatia, Macrina, depicted on her deathbed discoursing on the immortality of the soul, and Augustine’s mother Monica.

To better understand the context within which ancient and medieval women lived and thought, we examine ideas about women in Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics.

A look at letters ascribed to early female Pythagoreans and a discussion of Diotima and Aspasia, who appear as speakers in Plato’s dialogues Symposium and Menexenus.