Margaret Cavendish, a female author of two utopian texts: “The Convent of Pleasure” and The Blazing World, seems to subvert the gendered binary of utopian writing and even of utopian characters. Although she is a female author herself and her works are, in one manner, continuous with the feminine mode of utopian writing because they suggest that her utopias are better than the world in which we live and that we ought to emulate them, Cavendish is not completely in line with this mode. Indeed, she also utilizes components of the masculine mode of utopian writing. The main character of The Blazing World, the Empress, despite being female herself, can eventually be categorized as a typical male utopian character. But again, she is not completely in line with the masculine mode of utopian writing either. Therefore, Cavendish ultimately exists outside of this gendered binary by drawing strategies from both of them.

Texte remanié de: Diss. Ph. D.--Physics--Cambridge (Mass.)--Harvard university, 1991. / Bibliogr. p. [187]-215. Index.

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2002

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1983. / Typescript (photocopy).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-161).

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-116).

Made available in DSpace on 2015-09-25T12:20:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Jaene Guimaraes Pereira.pdf: 1924609 bytes, checksum: 4fe01fea06bc914063b3e3d3008fedd6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-17 / This research intends to address a lack of historical studies which can be useful to science teaching. We propose posting a historical episode on a blog to reach teachers who want to use history and philosophy in their classes. We chose the Henry Cavendish experiment about the density of the Earth as the historical episode and the methodology adopted was to divide the research into three distinct steps. First, we performed the historical and epistemological study about the episode. We looked for the primary and secondary sources which helped us to understand the experiment and the hypotheses already done proposed on about the value of the Earth s density and how it was related to the gravitational law proposed by Isaac Newton. Then, we considered how this episode can make explicit some aspects of the nature of science, such as the role of the experiment in the construction of a theory and the controversies about the value of the density during the 18th century. We also explored the physics concepts related to the Cavendish experiment such as the torsion pendulum, torque and moment of inertia. The second goal was to investigate why and how blogs are employed in science teaching and in the history of science. This investigation helped us define the necessary elements in our blog to interact with teachers and students and, at the same time, to propose a historical material based on specialized studies. The third step consisted of preparing the text and complementary activities to post on the blog and to complement the blog with pictures, drawings, sound files, original sources, etc. (http://lordecavendish.blogspot.com.br/). Because the nature of the blog is dynamic and in progress, this research is partly finished and will depend on the answers and suggestions posted in the future by the followers to know if it has achieved its purpose. The construction of the blog is only the first part of a bigger project that intends to inform science teachers of the history of science by an in-depth study and presentation of historical material. / Nossa pesquisa busca minimizar um problema com relação à divulgação e à acessibilidade de materiais históricos potencialmente significativos no ensino de ciências, auxiliando professores interessados em realizar trabalhos em sala de aula e ao mesmo tempo discutir o papel da experimentação na física e a natureza da ciência com o uso de um episódio histórico. Escolhemos como episódio histórico o experimento de Henry Cavendish (1731-1810), que permite associar discussões sobre as tentativas de obter a densidade da Terra durante o século XVIII, o papel de destaque dos experimentos neste século e a lei da gravitação universal de Newton, entre outros. O episódio histórico será aprofundado considerando três perspectivas: a histórica, explorando o contexto em que o experimento foi desenvolvido, seus pressupostos, a descrição detalhada e os resultados obtidos; a epistemológica, discutindo o papel da experimentação no século XVIII e a conceitual, que versará sobre os conteúdos de movimento oscilatório, pêndulos, força restauradora, momento de inércia, segunda lei de Newton na forma angular, gravitação e torque. Nossa proposta consiste em usar um blogue como fonte de divulgação da pesquisa histórica, ferramenta que nos possibilitará uma ampla discussão com os interessados no assunto, auxiliando-os no uso do episódio em sala de aula. Propomos um material histórico interativo, onde os professores assim como seus alunos possam tirar dúvidas e comentar ao mesmo tempo online, facilitando o acesso e a aprendizagem.

Typescript (photocopy)

In this paper I present, and offer a solution to, a heretofore unacknowledged textual puzzle that arises from Margaret Cavendish's use of inconceivability to make claims about what is metaphysically impossible. On the one hand, Cavendish asserts that objects or events she cannot conceive of are impossible in nature (i.e., inconceivability entails impossibility in nature). On the other hand, she writes that there are some things that exist or occur in nature that are inconceivable to humans (i.e., inconceivability does not entail impossibility in nature). Put simply, Cavendish seemingly contradicts herself. This textual puzzle not only threatens to undermine Cavendish's philosophical method; it also calls her opposition to human exceptionalism into question. By asserting that what is inconceivable to her is impossible in nature, Cavendish implies by contraposition that she can conceive of everything that is metaphysically possible. In so doing, she seems to make an exception at least for herself: though she believes that other parts of nature cannot conceive of everything in nature, she implies that she can. Ultimately, I argue that Cavendish thinks we can sometimes tell why something is inconceivable. In some cases, something is inconceivable because it lies beyond the limits of humans' mental capacities. In other cases, something is inconceivable because it is contradictory. This interpretation solves the textual puzzle, as it is consistent for Cavendish to maintain that some objects and events in nature are beyond our mental limits and that we can derive the impossibility of some object or event in nature from its contradictoriness. My interpretation preserves Cavendish's opposition to human exceptionalism, moreover, as no part of nature can conceive of contradictions. That is, Cavendish's claim is not merely that what is inconceivable to her is impossible in nature, but rather that what is inconceivable to her and to every other part of nature is impossible in nature. / Master of Arts / Margaret Cavendish, a seventeenth century philosopher, makes two seemingly contradictory claims throughout her philosophical works. On the one hand, she implies that if something is inconceivable to her — that is, if she cannot form a mental picture of it — that thing is impossible in nature. On the other hand, she writes that there are plenty of things that exist or occur in nature which are inconceivable to humans. A textual puzzle therefore arises: Cavendish seems to simultaneously maintain (1) that something is impossible in nature if she cannot conceive of it, and (2) that something is not necessarily impossible in nature if she cannot conceive of it. In this paper, I propose that Cavendish believes humans can at least sometimes determine why something is inconceivable. That is, we can at least sometimes diagnose our inability to form a mental picture of something. In some cases, Cavendish thinks, we cannot form a mental picture of something because of our limited, human mental capacities. (We might think, for example, that this is why we cannot form a mental picture of all the colors butterflies see.) In other cases, we cannot form a mental picture of something because that thing is contradictory. (We might think, for instance, that this is why we cannot form a mental picture of an apple that is both red all over and not red all over.) I further argue that Cavendish only asserts that something is impossible in nature if it is inconceivable because it is contradictory. On my account, the textual puzzle I presented above is in fact not so puzzling. Cavendish thinks that if something is inconceivable because it is contradictory, then it is impossible in nature. She also thinks that there are plenty of things in nature that we cannot conceive of because of our limited human mental capacities. Thankfully, these two claims are not in tension.