Women and Gender

Posted on 20 March 2011

In his masterpiece the Republic, Plato describes the ideal city and draws a parallel between this city and the just soul, with the three classes of the city mirroring the three parts of the soul. Peter discusses this parallel and the historical context that may have influenced Plato's political thought.

Posted on 1 May 2011

In this episode, Peter discusses Plato’s erotic dialogues, the Lysis, the Phaedrus and the Symposium, and talks about the relationship between love, friendship and philosophy in Plato’s thought.

Posted on 2 October 2011

Peter looks at the ideal arrangement of the state in Aristotle’s Politics, his critique of Plato’s Republic and his views on slavery.

Posted on 7 October 2012

Neoplatonism had a long-standing association with traditional Greek religion. How did philosophers respond when Christians gained ascendancy?

Posted on 5 October 2014

Fatema Mernissi and others challenge the long-standing (but not complete) exclusion of women from the intellectual traditions of Islam.

Posted on 25 January 2015

Peter Abelard and Heloise prove themselves to be fascinating thinkers as well as star-crossed lovers.

Posted on 26 April 2015

The life, visions, political intrigues and scientific interests of Hildegard of Bingen.

Posted on 27 September 2015

Two Beguine authors, Hadewijch and Mechthild of Magdeburg, deploy the tropes of courtly love in vernacular writings about their mystical experiences.

Posted on 17 April 2016

Women philosophers and ideas about women in Buddhism, the Upanisads, and the Mahabharata.

Posted on 18 December 2016

Marguerite Porete is put to death for her exploration of the love of God, The Mirror of Simple Souls.

Posted on 17 December 2017

Julian of Norwich’s Shewings and the Cloud of Unknowing lay out challenging paths to knowledge of, and union with, God.

Posted on 14 January 2018

Medieval attitudes towards homosexuality, sex and chastity, and the status of women. Authors discussed include Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, and Chaucer.

Posted on 28 January 2018

Peter is joined by Isabel Davis to discuss marriage, sex and chastity in Chaucer, focusing on the Wife of Bath's speech.

Posted on 11 February 2018

Jean Gerson’s role in the political disputes of his day, the spread of lay devotion and affective mysticism, and the debate over the Romance of the Rose initiated by Christine de Pizan.

Posted on 8 July 2018

Translations of religious and philosophical texts into Ge’ez, a national epic called the Kebra Nagast, and other developments in the story of philosophy in Ethiopia.

Posted on 22 July 2018

The 17th century Ethiopian rationalist Zera Yacob, hailed as the first modern Africana philosopher.

Posted on 2 September 2018

Walda Heywat’s reaction to the thought of his teacher Zera Yacob, and the dispute over the authenticity of these two Ethiopian philosophers.

Posted on 14 October 2018

Uthman Dan Fodio and his family were scholars, poets, and warriors whose jihad in 19th century Nigeria created the Sokoto Caliphate.

Posted on 2 December 2018

Princess Anna Komnene makes good use of her political retirement by writing her Alexiad and gathering a circle of scholars to write commentaries on Aristotle.

Posted on 30 December 2018

The role of women in Byzantine society and the complex attitudes surrounding eunuchs: did they make up a “third gender”?

Posted on 17 February 2019

What archeology, ethnography, and philosophical interpretation tell us about the diverse and often ambiguous roles of men and women in traditional African societies.

Posted on 3 March 2019

An interview with Nkiru Nzegwu on matriarchy, sexuality, and gender fluidity in Africa (with a quick chat at the end about her work on African art).

Posted on 31 March 2019

Henry Odera Oruka’s new method for exploring philosophy in Africa, based on interviews with wise individuals.

Posted on 21 July 2019

Phillis Wheatley astonishes colonial Americans with her exquisite and precocious poetry and reflects on the liberating power of the imagination.

Posted on 17 November 2019

Christine de Pizan's political philosophy, epistemology, and the refutation of misogyny in her "City of Ladies".

Posted on 24 November 2019

Building black institutions in early American history, with Prince Hall and the Masons in Boston, and Richard Allen and the Methodists in Philadelphia.

Posted on 1 December 2019

Cassandra Fedele, Isotta Nogarola, and Laura Cereta seek fame and glory through eloquence and learning.

Posted on 15 December 2019

Refutation of misogyny in Moderata Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella.

Posted on 19 January 2020

Maria W. Stewart’s public addresses bring the concerns of African American women into the struggle against racial prejudice.

Posted on 26 January 2020

Ficino describes a “Platonic” love purified of sexuality, prompting a debate carried on by Pico della Mirandola, Pietro Bembo, and Tullia d’Aragona.

Posted on 16 February 2020

Melvin Rogers joins us to discuss David Walker, Maria Stewart, and Hosea Easton.

Posted on 26 April 2020

The moral crusades of Sojourner Truth and Frances Harper, activists against racial and gender oppression.

Posted on 10 May 2020

Mary Ann Shadd and Samuel Ringgold Ward reflect on what Canada can offer African Americans, differing on the problem of racism.

Posted on 17 October 2020

Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South, an unprecedented contribution to black feminist theory.

Posted on 1 November 2020

Ida B. Wells, her tireless crusade against lynching, and her analysis of the underlying purpose of racial violence

Posted on 15 November 2020

Brittney Cooper on activists connected to the National Association of Colored Women, including Fannie Barrier Williams, Mary Church Terrell, and Ida B. Wells.

Posted on 10 January 2021

Co-host Chike joins Peter to look back at series two and ahead to series three.

Posted on 24 January 2021

By exploring the work and activities of W.E.B. Du Bois around the turn of the twentieth century, we introduce some of the themes of our coverage of that century.

Posted on 4 April 2021

Vanessa Wills speaks  to us about Marx and his Africana legacy, with a special focus on black women Marxists.

Posted on 2 May 2021

Marcus Garvey’s two wives, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey (pictured), establish themselves as activists in their own right and provide feminist voices within the Pan-African movement.

Posted on 5 September 2021

Zora Neale Hurston’s interest in Africana folklore feeds into her great novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Posted on 3 October 2021

Du Bois moves to the left, and revisits and refines older positions during the latter half of his very long life.

Posted on 31 October 2021

Our first look at the emergence of the Negritude movement in Paris in the 1930s, with a focus on the early leadership of the Nardal sisters and Leon Damas.

Posted on 28 November 2021

Negritude thinkers Aimé and Suzanne Césaire embrace surrealism and reflect on the relationships between poetry, knowledge, and identity.

Posted on 5 December 2021

In a surprise twist, some Protestant thinkers embrace the methods of scholasticism, and even find something to admire in the work of Catholic authors like Aquinas.

Posted on 19 December 2021

Was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa a dark magician, a pious skeptic, or both?

Posted on 23 January 2022

Claudia Jones argues that Communism provides the remedy for racism and imperialism.

Posted on 6 February 2022

Interview guest Carole Boyce Davies joins us to talk about the radical ideas of Claudia Jones.

Posted on 20 March 2022

In The Fire Next Time and other writings, the essayist and novelist James Baldwin seeks to dispel the illusions surrounding racial and sexual difference.

Posted on 5 June 2022

A Renaissance queen supports philosophical humanism and produces literary works on spirituality, love, and the soul.

Posted on 19 June 2022

In his outrageous novel about the giants Pantagruel and Gargantua, Rabelais engages with scholasticism, humanism, medicine, the reformation, and the querelle des femmes.

Posted on 24 July 2022

Frantz Fanon combines psychoanalysis and existential phenomenology to diagnose neuroses deriving from the colonial condition.

Posted on 2 October 2022

The author of the famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, explores questions of violence, sexuality, and more during her too brief life. 

Posted on 30 October 2022

The philosophical underpinnings of a “vanguard of revolution” led by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver: the Black Panther Party.

Posted on 13 November 2022

The Pan-Africanist philosopher Maulana Karenga defends the importance of cultural revolution and invents the holiday Kwanzaa.

Posted on 27 November 2022

African American literature of the late 1960s reflects the Black Power movement, in the works of such authors as Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhubuti, Larry Neal, and Sonia Sanchez.

Posted on 11 December 2022

After Albert Cleage and James Cone propose a liberatory interpretation of Christianity, William R. Jones wonders whether God is a white racist. We also follow Black Theology among “Womanist” authors and in South Africa.

Posted on 26 February 2023

Marie le Jars de Gourney, the “adoptive daughter” of Montaigne, lays claim to his legacy and argues for the equality of the sexes.

Posted on 5 March 2023

Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic return to claim the pyramids, and Octavia Butler uses science fiction to confront the brutal past of slavery.

Thanks to Stephan Terre for the creation of the futuristic intro music!

Posted on 26 March 2023

John Knox polemicizes against idolaters and female rulers, while the humanist George Buchanan argues more calmly for equally radical political conclusions.