A volume in the Edinburgh University Press series Intersectionality in Classical Antiquity, this book is well-crafted and thoughtful. It focuses on the intersection of female gender and knowledge, i.e. what women know and how they know it, and consists of an introduction and fourteen contributions covering a wide range of ancient Greek and Roman sources as well as postclassical texts and receptions.
Particularly valuable is the introduction, in which the volume's three editors lay out the conceptual frameworks of the book in a concise and accessible way. Their ‘feminist epistemological field guide’ introduces key terms and concepts such as ‘epistemology’, which the authors helpfully explain beyond its etymological meaning (‘study of knowledge’) to its more expansive applications: ‘the study of a broader range of concepts related to cognitive success and failure, including knowledge, understanding, wisdom, belief, disbelief, assent, dissent, opinion, ignorance and the varying conditions that produce these states, such as justification, evidence, proof, objectivity, testimony, intellectual ability, intellectual virtues and vices, reason, rationality and irrationality, among others’ (p. 6). As the authors point out, feminist epistemologies generally acknowledge that identity is key to the formation of knowledge. The concept of standpoint theory holds that ‘different “standpoints”, especially those acquired by non-dominant or marginalised knowers, can result in privileged access to certain facts or values unavailable to the dominant culture’ (p. 8). This is a concept familiar to many people of colour (as the editors acknowledge in citing D. Padilla Peralta, ‘Some thoughts on the AIA-SCS 2019’, Medium, 7 January [2019], https://medium.com/@danelpadillaperalta/some-thoughts-on-aia-scs-2019-d6a480a1812a). For some readers standpoint theory will resonate with positionality, i.e. ‘the notion that personal values, views, and location in time and space influence how one understands the world. In this context, gender, race, class, and other aspects of identities are indicators of social and spatial positions and are not fixed, given qualities. Positions act on the knowledge a person has about things, both material and abstract. Consequently, knowledge is the product of a specific position that reflects particular places and spaces’ (L. Sánchez, ‘Positionality’, in: B. Warf [ed.], Encyclopedia of Geography, Vol. 1 [2010], p. 2258, https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781412939591.n913).
The other key concepts presented in the introduction are anti-atomism and epistemic injustice. The anti-atomistic stance of the book pushes back against the idea of atomistic knowledge, i.e. the presumption that fully objective knowledge is possible. Further, anti-atomism eschews the belief that knowledge can be created purely individually, instead positing that knowledge is created in community. Epistemic injustice, a concept introduced by the philosopher Miranda Fricker, is the final key idea anchoring the book. Epistemic injustice refers to ‘forms of discrimination that impact someone's “capacity as a knower”’ (p. 17). There are a number of variations and related concepts, but, in brief, epistemic injustice occurs when someone's knowledge is disbelieved, disregarded or destroyed based on prejudice, whether individual or structural.
The chapters following the introduction present interpretations of specific Greek and Roman sources – both well known and off the beaten path – as well as historical, cultural or intellectual phenomena in premodernity and beyond. The chapters are ordered chronologically, beginning with E. Weiberg's chapter on Sappho and queer epistemology, which builds on the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde to explore how Sappho's poetry privileges the knowledge that comes from erotic and bodily experiences. A chapter by Gilbert examines the gendered knowledge of the Oceanids in Prometheus Bound, applying feminist epistemological frameworks to argue for the pivotal role the Oceanids – and their marginalised position – play in the production of knowledge. F. McHardy's chapter considers the figure of Zobia, a metic woman in Demosthenes’ Against Aristogeiton, who gathers the strength of public opinion to counter the unjust violence inflicted on her by Aristogeiton, a much more socially and politically powerful man. Following is a chapter by Nally on Diotima's embodied reproductive knowledge in Plato's Symposium; Nally pushes against arguments that consider Diotima's female gender insignificant to the type of knowledge she offers. A chapter by P. Kim examines the material and textual evidence surrounding Cynisca, a Spartan dynastic celebrated in a monumental epigram as the first woman victor in the Olympic chariot-races. Kim thoughtfully and incisively analyses the benefits and pitfalls of the epistemological tools available to us for recovering knowledge about exceptional historical women.
Moving to the Roman world, S. Witzke explores the treatment of female rape victims in Plautus’ Truculentus and Terence's Hecyra to make provocative points about the playwrights’ non-citizen status and the perspective it affords them on Roman society and its inherent inequities. K. Milnor examines ‘incidental’ women in Cicero's letters who disrupt rather than fit into traditional historical narratives; she argues that Cicero ‘both represents and resists’ a ‘deeper anti-history’ in his letters, which we can see through the ‘incidental women’ who appear in them (p. 141). S. Haley provides a chapter on the usefulness of intersectionality – specifically, racialised gender – as a critical tool for understanding Augustan Rome; she analyses the figures of Virgil's Dido and Livy's Sophoniba as they clash with the ideals of Roman masculinity central to Rome's origin stories. Bowen examines the episode of Leucothoe's rape in Ovid's Metamorphoses and argues that Ovid calls attention to but also reinforces epistemic injustice in his treatment of Leucothoe. A chapter by D. Freas examines epistemic injustice in the story of the Pergamene Boy in Petronius’ Satyrica; employing the modern concept of child grooming, Freas argues that Eumolpus commits epistemic injustice in his interaction with the Pergamene boy and his parents. She thus demonstrates that the applicability of feminist epistemology is not limited to episodes in which female figures appear. A chapter by C. Bowden explores the compatibility of Stoicism and feminist epistemology. Through examinations of epistemic agency and the role of emotions in Stoic and feminist thought, Bowden points out key points of divergence that undermine the idea of feminist Stoicism.
J. Hines’ chapter on medieval receptions of the figure of Iphis from Ovid's Metamorphoses begins the book's explorations of post-classical sources; she examines the epistemic implications of the treatment (or suppression) of homoerotic desire in medieval accounts of Iphis. E. Zimmermann Damer's chapter on the poetry of Martha Marchina, a seventeenth-century inhabitant of Rome, illustrates how the ‘epistemology of care’ (p. 261) that permeates Marchina's epigrams brings its readers into a community that privileges female-centred knowledge. A. Strong's chapter on the rape of enslaved characters in HBO's Rome and STARZ's Spartacus concludes the volume. Informed by Fricker and José Medina's work on ‘pre-emptive silence and epistemic objectification’ (p. 263), Strong explores the perspectives afforded to us by the silences and body language of rape survivors, especially in contrast to the stories told by their assaulters.
While the chapters range very broadly, there is a striking consistency on a number of fronts. Each contribution exemplifies solid scholarship with clear presentation and structure; almost every chapter is organised into subsections, making the author's argument easy to follow. The concepts laid forth in the introduction permeate and lend structure to the book, even amidst the wide variety of topics and arguments presented. Every single contributor integrates feminist epistemological concepts and vocabulary into their respective chapters – this is a degree of thematic and methodological cohesion that is rare in edited volumes, and the effect is a book that, although multi-authored and diverse, has a kind of unity more typical of solo-authored monographs. Furthermore, there are several connecting threads: the knowledge that stems from marginalised identities; knowledge born of bodily experience; the relationship between knowledge and violence, including sexual assault; recovering knowledge from silence or absence. Related to this last point, while some of the contributions focus directly on female voices from premodernity, most of the contributions must by necessity excavate female perspectives from male-authored creations. This puts the volume in the tradition of the 2001 volume Making Silence Speak: Women's Voices in Greek Literature and Society (A. Lardinois and L. McClure [edd.]).
There is one troubling aspect of the book. The editors, through their meticulous introduction of the academic methodologies on which the book is premised, make a careful and airtight case for the intellectual merits of their project, which I appreciate and commend. At the same time, there is a sobering paradox in this demonstration of intellectual rigour: the implicit goal of feminist – or any justice-centred – epistemologies is to make space for non-dominant ways of knowing, yet the book's concepts and frameworks are very much a product of traditional academic norms that were established by dominant positions. In the introduction's careful and thorough presentation of the book's methodologies, one can almost detect the intrusive presence of a particular kind of unsympathetic reader, whose scrutiny and scepticism require the authors to assume a pre-emptively defensive stance. This underlying defensiveness surfaces a few times, for example, in the several reminders (pp. 7, 25–6) that the book is not comprehensive or exhaustive (what book could claim to be?); in the acknowledgement that the ‘taxonomy of views offered [in the feminist epistemological field guide]’ is ‘incomplete’ (p. 7); in the admission that ‘isolating particular feminist epistemological approaches, as we do below, is highly artificial’ as ‘most of the views that we introduce as distinct interpretative stances have significant theoretical overlap’ (p. 7). This is not a criticism of the book's editors and contributors. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the hidden constraints and attacks necessitating the book's intellectual fortifications. To publish an academic book foregrounding diverse and divergent perspectives, it is still necessary to operate under the very rules of academic ‘rigour’ established by majoritarian, dominant positions.
My actual points of criticism are few and minor. At times it is not always clear to me that the frameworks and terminology introduced are necessary for producing the insights contained in the book. For example, some of the insights about the rape of Leucothoe in Ovid's Metamorphoses echo arguments advanced previously without an expressly feminist epistemological framework (S. McCarter, ‘Rape, Lost in Translation: How translators of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses’ turn an assault into a consensual encounter’, Electric Literature 1 May 1 [2018], https://electricliterature.com/rape-lost-in-translation/). Furthermore, there are a few somewhat appropriative applications of Black feminism or critical race frameworks to texts and contexts that do not explicitly have to do with race.
But overall, there is a lot to learn from and to like about this book. It serves as a useful primer for feminist epistemologies, its key architects, related concepts, and where they overlap with and diverge from other systems of knowledge. It educates readers on the usefulness of feminist epistemology for excavating texts and objects to reveal the gendered perspectives and knowledge within. This book is informative and full of insights that illuminate the significance of gender in ancient ways of knowing.
