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How Female Intellectuals Stopped Being Philosophers: On Anna Maria van Schurman in the Catalogues of Learned Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Anne-Sophie Sørup Wandall
Anne-Sophie Sørup Wandall*
Affiliation:
Section for Philosophy, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the figure of the female intellectual exemplified in Anna Maria van Schurman, as she is portrayed in the catalogues of learned women. The aim is to demonstrate the dramatic and unexpected changes that this persona undergoes during the eighteenth century. The article challenges the common misconception that gender roles progress throughout history towards an ideal of freedom and equality. Instead, I argue that we see a regression in the eighteenth century where the ideal of female intellectuality transforms from focusing on gender-neutral virtues such as academic skill and learnedness to emphasizing traditionally feminine traits like modesty, piety, and domesticity. The first part of the article introduces the genre of catalogues of learned women, focusing on the German context. The main part presents an in-depth analysis of the biographical entries on van Schurman, juxtaposing the early eighteenth-century portrayals with entries from the turn of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this analysis is to illustrate the radical discursive changes concerning women intellectuals by using van Schurman as case study. Finally, the last part of the article will be dedicated to a discussion of historical conceptualizations of womanhood, exploring why the gender narrative changed in the early modern period.

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Hypatia , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , Winter 2025 , pp. 21 - 40
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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