Becoming a resisting reader : enacting and enabling a feminist reading of women in Livy
Date
2011
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en_US
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
In Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity
both Marilyn Skinner and Phyllis Culham struggle with what it means to be a feminist
scholar of classical sources. The problems faced by a feminist scholar of the classics are
daunting and manifold. The classical texts we read are misogynistic, the societies we
study are patriarchal and the scholarly framework and critical methodologies that are
most widely accepted either cannot or choose not to see women and female characters in
their own right. Both women, while giving credit where it’s due, struggle with the
structure and sustainability of the broad survey work feminist scholars have tried to do.
The traditional methods cannot work for the study of women in ancient society and
classical literature because, while trying to adhere to the innately empiricist bias in
mainstream scholarship, feminist scholars are actually forced to rely more on speculation.
If we can get scholarship to value literature as a truly valid, if not comprehensive, source
then feminist textual readings, close literary analysis in the most traditional sense, can
have a chance of reinvigorating feminist scholarship. While literature cannot present us
with the factual truth that historians usually crave, it can provide invaluable insight. We
must then become Judith Fetterly’s resisting reader; we must appreciate the text,
approach it with respect and then, only then, should we provide a critical and informed
evaluation of the text as it relates to women and feminism.