WOMEN’S HISTORY IN POLITICAL THOUGHT
cod. 1011038

Academic year 2022/23
2° year of course - Second semester
Professor
- Fausto PAGNOTTA
Academic discipline
Storia delle dottrine politiche (SPS/02)
Field
A scelta dello studente
Type of training activity
Student's choice
36 hours
of face-to-face activities
6 credits
hub: PARMA
course unit
in ITALIAN

Learning objectives

Respect to knowledge and understanding (Descriptor 1 = knowledge and understanding), at the end of the course the student must have acquired the fundamental historical knowledge on the cultural and political origins of gender discrimination and on some of the ideas that have connoted the figure of women within the history of Western political thought. The student must have achieved full knowledge stereotypes on the female figure that are at the origins of gender discrimination and political ideas through which the female figure has been characterized in the history of Western political thought. The student must have gained knowledge of some of the texts of those authors and the texts of those women who were among the first to develop a political thought on women's emancipation.

With respect to knowledge and ability to applied understanding (Descriptor 2 = applying knowledge and understanding), the student through an educational path marked on Lesson method / Socratic heuristic must have acquired the ability to understand and analyze the topics of the lessons. With this ability the student will have to demonstrate that he is able to elaborate his own critical thinking on the topics exposed in class.

With respect to independent judgment (Descriptor 3 = making judgments) the students must have acquired at the end of the course the ability to analyze the subjects learned in class in order to know how to relate to them critically.

With respect to communication skills (Descriptor 4 = communication skills) through the methods of method of the heuristic / Socratic lesson the student must acquire a satisfactory property expressive both at the terminological and conceptual level. The student will have to learn to expose the topics of the lesson with autonomy.

Respect to the ability to learn (Descriptor 5 = learning skills) students will have acquired those bibliographic and linguistic-lexical tools as well
conceptual that will allow them to independently develop a critical reflection on the problems dealt with in teaching. The student must also have acquired the ability to develop an autonomous thinking based on teaching topics and to express it to the teacher and colleagues.

Prerequisites

None.

Course unit content

In different historical epochs there are women who have elaborated a political thought and transmitted it in their writings; yet many of these women with their writings are not studied in schools, they are not part of school training programs, and above all they do not find space in school books; the result is that many of these women are little known or even ignored. The teaching course aims to help reduce this cultural gender gap.

The course intends to go to the cultural origins of the political conceptions that have discriminated against women in the West and to deal with some of the ideas that have allowed their emancipation.

The biographies of women who in the West have elaborated their original political thought will be studied and the main themes of their writings will be studied and commented through the reading of some passages of their works.

Full programme

FIRST PART: "Sociocultural and political models at the origin of gender discriminations and inequalities"
- Forms of exclusion of women in the Greek polis;
- The woman in the Homeric poems;
- Socrates; Plato; Aristotle;
- Medical theories on the female body;
SECOND PART: "Women in the history of political thought":
The pioneers of women's emancipation:
Christine de Pizan; Marie de Gournay; Mary Astell; Olympe de Gouges; Harriet Taylor; Mary Wollstonecraft; Sarah M. Grimké and other examples of women who developed political thought.

Bibliography

- R. Gherardi (a cura di), La politica e gli Stati. Problemi e figure del pensiero occidentale, Carocci, Roma, 2022 (TERZA EDIZIONE), [PARTS TO BE STUDIED FOR THE PREPARATION OF THE EXAM: Premessa, PARTE I: Capitoli 3; 4; 6; and a chapter of your choice; PARTE II: Mary Astell (pp. 220-228); Olympe De Gouges (pp. 305-312); Mary Wollstonecraft (pp. 313-321); Madame de Stael (pp. 356-364); Flora Tristan (pp. 375-382); Rosa Luxemburg (pp. 438-446); Beatrice Potter Webb (pp. 455-463); Simone Weil (pp. 475-483); Hannah Arendt (pp. 514-524).

- P. Rudan, Donna. Storia e critica di un concetto polemico, il Mulino, Bologna, 2020.

- E. Cantarella, Gli inganni di Pandora. L'origine delle discriminazioni di genere nella Grecia antica, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2019.

- A. Rossi-Doria, Le donne nella modernità, Pazzini, Villa Verucchio, 2007.


OUT OF THE EXAM PROGRAM READING IN THE CLASSROOM OF SELECTED PAGES WHICH WILL BE INDICATED ON ELLY FROM THE BOOK:

- G. Gianturco, G. Brancato, Oltre gli stereotipi sulla violenza di genere. Approcci, teorie e ricerche, prefazione di Antonella Polimeni, Collana Materiali e documenti 89, Sapienza Università Editrice, Roma, 2022 [disponibile open access al link https://www.editricesapienza.it/book/8227].

Teaching methods

The teaching activities will be conducted through the method of the frontal lesson /presentation and the method of the lesson Heuristic/ Socratic; a sequential type of expositive teaching (with steps of knowledge) will be alternated with a hypothetical or heuristic teaching based on questions/ stimulus. This mode of teaching aims to promote in the students the autonomous research of meaning on the topics of the frontal lessons. With the use of the Simulation/Role playing and Cooperative Learning methods, we will try to involve the students actively in the construction of the lesson.

Assessment methods and criteria

Written exam with 5 open questions on the topics of lectures, bibliography and seminars to be held within the course. Estimated time for the exam 2 hours.

Other information

GET THE BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO HAVE THEM IN THE CLASSROOM DURING THE LESSONS.