Re-Membering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities is a recovery of Hypatia of Alexandria (355-415 ACE) as a skilled rhetorician and instructor of note who taught in Alexandria, Egypt. This work addresses Hypatia as a missing female figure from the history of rhetoric and follows the work of feminist historiographers in the field of Rhetoric and Composition including Andrea Lunsford, Jan Swearingen, Susan Jarratt, and Cheryl Glenn (among others) who note the exclusion of women from ancient schools of rhetoric, yet assert their participation in rhetorical activities. In its recovery of Hypatia, the work recreates the historical milieu of Roman Alexandria including Alexandria’s ethnically and religiously diverse population. As a woman of Greco-Egyptian decent, Hypatia’s public work was supported by Egyptian, Greek, and Roman legal and social customs that enabled her to lecture in public and private, administer her own school, and advise high-level political leaders. Using feminist and post-modern theories as a lens and fusing disciplines such as Rhetoric and Composition, Classics, History, Philosophy, Communication Studies, Critical Theory, and Women’s Studies, this project demonstrates that although primary texts authored by women are scarce, historians may still recover women and their activities for expanded historical traditions of rhetoric by examining secondary texts. The concept of community is used as a heuristic in order to discover communities in which Hypatia engaged and led to the discovery of women Neoplatonists of the fourth century ACE and Neopythagoreans from the sixth through second centuries BCE. The Neoplatonists and Neopythagoreans usually married only those who shared their belief system; hence, women were commonly educated and participated in their communities to secure the survival of their respective group. Included is a sustained critique of historiographical methods that may allow feminist historiographers to return to the ancient period to conduct much needed further research.

Re-Membering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities is a recovery of Hypatia of Alexandria (355-415 ACE) as a skilled rhetorician and instructor of note who taught in Alexandria, Egypt. This work addresses Hypatia as a missing female figure from the history of rhetoric and follows the work of feminist historiographers in the field of Rhetoric and Composition including Andrea Lunsford, Jan Swearingen, Susan Jarratt, and Cheryl Glenn (among others) who note the exclusion of women from ancient schools of rhetoric, yet assert their participation in rhetorical activities. In its recovery of Hypatia, the work recreates the historical milieu of Roman Alexandria including Alexandria’s ethnically and religiously diverse population. As a woman of Greco-Egyptian decent, Hypatia’s public work was supported by Egyptian, Greek, and Roman legal and social customs that enabled her to lecture in public and private, administer her own school, and advise high-level political leaders. Using feminist and post-modern theories as a lens and fusing disciplines such as Rhetoric and Composition, Classics, History, Philosophy, Communication Studies, Critical Theory, and Women’s Studies, this project demonstrates that although primary texts authored by women are scarce, historians may still recover women and their activities for expanded historical traditions of rhetoric by examining secondary texts. The concept of community is used as a heuristic in order to discover communities in which Hypatia engaged and led to the discovery of women Neoplatonists of the fourth century ACE and Neopythagoreans from the sixth through second centuries BCE. The Neoplatonists and Neopythagoreans usually married only those who shared their belief system; hence, women were commonly educated and participated in their communities to secure the survival of their respective group. Included is a sustained critique of historiographical methods that may allow feminist historiographers to return to the ancient period to conduct much needed further research.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Esta pesquisa pretende delinear perfis de mulheres alemãs imigrantes que vêm ao sul do Brasil na segunda metade do século XIX. Este delineamento ocorre a partir de três jornais e de cartas escritas por estas mulheres. Entrelaçado a isto, a pesquisa quer lançar um olhar crítico a uma visão de mulher existente no senso comum, que a considera limitada a sua sagrada missão de esposa-dona-de-casa-mãe. Ao utilizar, neste contexto, a teoria feminista e a noção de gênero, fundamenta-se a crítica aos perfis traçados. Surgem fissuras e brechas, momentos de re-significação de cotidianos e experiências tantas vezes pré-definidos. Estruturar o trabalho de forma a romper com dualismos e propor a questão teórico-metodológica de uma historiografia feminista como questão-chave desta tese, finaliza, temporariamente e em uma proposta plural, a reflexão em torno do tema. / This research intends to delineate the profiles of German immigrant women, who came to the south of Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century. This delineation is based on three newspapers and on letters written by these women. Intertwined to this, the research wants to cast a critical look on a view of women that exists in the common sense, considering her limited to her sacred mission of wife-housewife-mother. The feminist theory and the notion of gender used in this context, found the critique on the outlined profiles. Ruptures and gaps arise as well as moments of re-signification of daily experiences, so often predefined. To structure this work so that it breaks up with dualisms and to propose the theoretical-methodological question of a feminist historiography as the key-question of this thesis concludes temporarily and with a plural proposition the reflection around this theme.

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This thesis examines the discursive position of 'goddess feminism', in relation to some of the difference- and eco feminist positions from the1960s and until today. In focus are the texts of the two goddess feminists, Monica Sjöö and Starhawk. The thesis contributes to a historiographical (re)situating of their political and religious narratives. It also contributes to an elaborated understanding of these goddess feminists and the goddess feminist discourse they are part of. The tentative feminist figuration 'the goddess identified feminist’ is articulated as a tool to discuss the religious and political discourse of goddess feminists as part of contemporary feminist and environmental political conversations and practices. Donna Haraway’s and Karen Barad’s post humanist theoretical interventions are used to explore and discuss the affinities between goddess feminists (re)negotiation of the subject/s 'goddess/nature/human' – and the (re)negotiation of 'nature/human’ made by new materialist/post humanist difference- and eco feminists of the 2000s. Rosi Braidotti’s writings on sexual difference, becoming and feminist figurations further informs the conclusions drawn in the thesis. Drawing on the methodological approaches of Clare Hemmings and Mieke Bal in the analysis of story-telling and subject construction, a contribution is also made, to the understanding of how story-telling as part of a discourse, produces meaning and asymmetric subject relations. In particular the thesis shows how a compassionate feminist storytelling involuntarily produces subject positions through, essentialist dualisms, hierarchical ordering and othering. In parallel, the thesis also discusses alternative narrative strategies that focus on both the discursive boarders and affinities. / Baksidestext: Det här är en bok om två gudinnefeminister och deras religiösa och politiska berättande. Men det är lika mycket en bok om ’gudinnefeminism’ och hur denna feministiska position relaterar till, skiljer sig från och överlappar med andra skillnads- och ekofeministiska positioner från 1960-talet och till idag. Magdalena Raivios doktorsavhandling omförhandlar historien om ’gudinne-feminism’. Den synliggör även innehållet i Monica Sjöös och Starhawks berättelser om samhället, gudinnan/naturen/människan, framtiden och revolu-tionen. Här visas hur problematiska generaliseringar och uppdelningar i ”vi” och ”de andra” skapas i berättandet – men att Sjöö och Starhawk även vidgar och omförhandlar innebörden av begrepp som ’kvinna’ och ’natur’. En feministisk figuration kallad ’den gudinneidentifierade feministen’ används som tentativ utgångspunkt för nutida samtal om feministiska och miljöpolitiska visioner och för-ändringsstrategier. Avhandlingens resultat styrker tidigare forskning som visat att ett ”feministiskt medkännande berättande” – trots sin välmenta ambition – ofrivilligt medverkar i skapandet av diskursiva gränser, hierarkier och generaliseringar. Som ett teoretiskt bidrag, formuleras och diskuteras här några skillnadsfeministiska ansatser till alternativa berättandestrategier.

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