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Women, history, and theory
Book Reviews rationaiisation of the world-image in the twelfth century. Although perhaps Stiefel’s thesis is overstated, her picture of the intellectual world of twelfth-century Europe is very persuasive.
Women, History, and Theory, Joan Kelley (Chicago Press, 1986), xxvi + 163 pp., paper $7.95.
and London:
University
of Chicago
When Joan Kelly died of cancer in 1982, at the age of fifty-four, the field of women’s studies lost one of its guiding spirits as well as one of its most fertile minds. Kelly had a contract with the University of Chicago Press to do a volume about women, history and theory. She could not finish it because of her illness; so she planned this present work that draws upon previously published essays. Her Preface is based on tapes dictated during the last months of her life, the transcripts of which were edited by Catharine Stimpson. The book begins with an Introduction written by five friends and colleagues after Kelly’s death. Her most significant essays then follow. In ‘The Social Relation of the Sexes’, her first extensive theoretical statement about women’s history, Kelly argues that in regard to periodisation historians should look at ages or movements of great social change in terms of their liberation or repression of woman’s potential. Using this criterion in ‘Did Women Have a Renaissance‘?’ she concludes that there was no ‘renaissance’ for women, at least not during the Renaissance because ‘a new division between personal and public life made itself felt’ and as a consequence women increasingly lost control over production, property and their own persons. Her essay ‘Family and Society’ shows how gender relations and antagonisms are complicated by class and race. She traces the development of family forms and places them within an historical context; thus patriarchy is not some static eternal verity, but rather the product of historical conditions. In ‘The Doubled Vision of Feminist Theory’ Kelly shows how the bourgeois conception of a private (home) and a public (work) domain supports a partiarchal social order, which in itself inhibits the full female potential from being realised. Finally, her essay on ‘Early Feminist Theory’ is rich in sources and ideas for further research. For the period 1400-1789, Kelly discerns a coherent body of feminist thought, i.e. a feminist consciousness. This emphasis on consciousness is central to all of Kelly’s work. She insists ‘on the importance of women’s own experience, including that of resistance and struggle, in demystifying misogynist culture’ (pp. xxv-xxvi). One cannot read these posthumous essays without a profound sense of loss; nevertheless this slim volume contains the fruits of Joan Kelly’s fresh insights, an enduring lagacy for us all.
The Thought of Gregory the Great, G. R. Evans, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Vol. 2 (Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1986) xi + 164 pp., f25.00, $39.50. It is a pity that this carefully researched and eminently useful volume is so expensive. It should be in every university library. G. R. Evans has captured the practical, pastoral mind of Gregory the Great with a fluency and persuasiveness worthy of Gregory himself. Through his close reading of the sources, Evans has allowed ‘Gregory’s thought to shape the discourse’. By Gregory’s time there was an established body of teaching, a full theology upon which the pope could draw; so the intellectual struggles of St. Augustine were not part of Gregory’s world of thought. Like St. Augustine, however, Gregory was uneasy about secular learning; but he, too, felt that the liberal arts were necessary in order to gain a more accurate knowledge of God’s Word. Gregory shared with his contemporaries a strong sense of the nearness of the supernatural world; therefore signs and wonders filled his
Women, History, and Theory, Joan Kelley (Chicago Press, 1986), xxvi + 163 pp., paper $7.95.
and London:
University
of Chicago
When Joan Kelly died of cancer in 1982, at the age of fifty-four, the field of women’s studies lost one of its guiding spirits as well as one of its most fertile minds. Kelly had a contract with the University of Chicago Press to do a volume about women, history and theory. She could not finish it because of her illness; so she planned this present work that draws upon previously published essays. Her Preface is based on tapes dictated during the last months of her life, the transcripts of which were edited by Catharine Stimpson. The book begins with an Introduction written by five friends and colleagues after Kelly’s death. Her most significant essays then follow. In ‘The Social Relation of the Sexes’, her first extensive theoretical statement about women’s history, Kelly argues that in regard to periodisation historians should look at ages or movements of great social change in terms of their liberation or repression of woman’s potential. Using this criterion in ‘Did Women Have a Renaissance‘?’ she concludes that there was no ‘renaissance’ for women, at least not during the Renaissance because ‘a new division between personal and public life made itself felt’ and as a consequence women increasingly lost control over production, property and their own persons. Her essay ‘Family and Society’ shows how gender relations and antagonisms are complicated by class and race. She traces the development of family forms and places them within an historical context; thus patriarchy is not some static eternal verity, but rather the product of historical conditions. In ‘The Doubled Vision of Feminist Theory’ Kelly shows how the bourgeois conception of a private (home) and a public (work) domain supports a partiarchal social order, which in itself inhibits the full female potential from being realised. Finally, her essay on ‘Early Feminist Theory’ is rich in sources and ideas for further research. For the period 1400-1789, Kelly discerns a coherent body of feminist thought, i.e. a feminist consciousness. This emphasis on consciousness is central to all of Kelly’s work. She insists ‘on the importance of women’s own experience, including that of resistance and struggle, in demystifying misogynist culture’ (pp. xxv-xxvi). One cannot read these posthumous essays without a profound sense of loss; nevertheless this slim volume contains the fruits of Joan Kelly’s fresh insights, an enduring lagacy for us all.
The Thought of Gregory the Great, G. R. Evans, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Vol. 2 (Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1986) xi + 164 pp., f25.00, $39.50. It is a pity that this carefully researched and eminently useful volume is so expensive. It should be in every university library. G. R. Evans has captured the practical, pastoral mind of Gregory the Great with a fluency and persuasiveness worthy of Gregory himself. Through his close reading of the sources, Evans has allowed ‘Gregory’s thought to shape the discourse’. By Gregory’s time there was an established body of teaching, a full theology upon which the pope could draw; so the intellectual struggles of St. Augustine were not part of Gregory’s world of thought. Like St. Augustine, however, Gregory was uneasy about secular learning; but he, too, felt that the liberal arts were necessary in order to gain a more accurate knowledge of God’s Word. Gregory shared with his contemporaries a strong sense of the nearness of the supernatural world; therefore signs and wonders filled his