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The Exclusion of Early Modern Women Philosophers from the Canon: Causes and Counteractive Strategies from the Digital Humanities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2022

Natalia Zorrilla Open the ORCID record for Natalia Zorrilla [Opens in a new window]
Natalia Zorrilla*
Affiliation:
CONICET, Alejandro Korn Institute of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires, Puan 480, CP 1406, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
*
Corresponding author. n.zorrilla@conicet.gov.ar
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Extract

Whether it be in universities’ curricula or in traditional accounts of the history of philosophy, early modern women philosophers have frequently been treated as secondary, inconsequential characters. Although many valuable efforts are being made to counter this state of affairs, a generalized tendency to focus on well-known male philosophers and to establish them as representative figures of the early modern period still seems to exist. But does this strategy produce an accurate historical account of early modern philosophy? This essay explores diverse causes of the exclusion of early modern women philosophers from the canon, reflecting on the historical and political aspects of this phenomenon. This piece also intends to highlight the importance of the innovative projects that have been recently created in the field of the digital humanities, which aim to mitigate and to counter said exclusion.

Type
Musing
Information
Hypatia , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , Winter 2022 , pp. 177 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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