An Edition and Translation of Selections from "Work on Women" by French Enlightenment Philosopher Louise Dupin (1706-1799)

FAIN: FT-264971-19

Rebecca M. Wilkin
Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA 98447-0001)

Translation into English and editing for publication "Word on Women," an unpublished manuscript of political theory by Madame Louise Dupin (1706-1799).

A translation and edition of selections from Louise Dupin’s long-neglected "Work on Women" (ca. 1745-1751) brings to 21st-century students and scholars the voice of the most important feminist philosopher of the French Enlightenment. In 48 chapters, Dupin skewers sexist bias in natural philosophy and history written by men and reveals the impoverishment and disenfranchisement of women to be a “modern” phenomenon instituted through the laws of the French nation-state. Though the Work was never published, aspects of it lived on—unacknowledged—in the writings of Dupin’s secretary, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Selections from the "Work on Women" not only restores Dupin to her rightful place in the history of feminist thought; it moreover challenges her first community of readers to revise a history of philosophy built on the suppressed voices of women. During the tenure of the grant, I propose to complete the translation of 7 of the 20 chapters to be included in Selections from the Work on Women.