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Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities Cara Minardi Georgia State University Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 5-7-2011 Re-Membering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and her Communities Cara Minardi Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Minardi, Cara, "Re-Membering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and her Communities." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/67 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RE-MEMBERING ANCIENT WOMEN: HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA AND HER COMMUNITIES by Cara A. Minardi Under the Direction of Lynée Lewis Gaillet ABSTRACT 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. INDEX KEYWORDS: Rhetoric, History of rhetoric, Women, Ancient rhetoric, Alexandria, Feminist historiography, Classical history RE-MEMBERING ANCIENT WOMEN: HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA AND HER COMMUNITIES by Cara A. Minardi A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Cara A. Minardi 2011 RE-MEMBERING ANCIENT WOMEN: HYPATIA OF ALEXANDRIA AND HER COMMUNITIES by Cara A. Minardi Committee Chair: Lynée Lewis Gaillet Committee: Beth Burmester George Pullman Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2011 Minardi vi DEDICATION This text is dedicated to my graduate student family; my partner, Peter Fontaine, and my community of sisters; Jennifer Forsthoefel, Oriana Gatta, Juliette Kitchens, and Melanie McDougald, for their unconditional love and support. Minardi vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful for the aid of an Advanced Teaching Fellowship from the Department of English at Georgia State University that enabled me to complete work on this dissertation. I would also like to thank members of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition for their encouragement and mentoring over the years. In particular, conversations with Suzanne Bordelon, Lindal Buchannan, Nan Johnson, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Gesa Kirsch, and Barbara L‟Eplattenier have helped me to consider and reconsider my work. A special thank you to Mary Hocks who volunteered to comment on each chapter of the first draft. I would also like to thank committee members Beth Burmester and George Pullman for their close reading and astute advice. My dissertation chair Lynée Gaillet deserves many special thanks for listening, guiding my work, and being patient and supportive with and of me. I do not know how I would have finished this work without her. Minardi viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Problems of History 9 Chapter Two: Historical Context 36 Chapter Three: Hypatia of Alexandria 68 Chapter Four: Women in the Ancient Mediterranean 99 Chapter Five: Pedagogy 140 Conclusion 155 Appendix A: Resources 158 Appendix B: Timeline of Women Minardi 1 PREFACE Historians such Andrea Lunsford, Jan Swearingen, Susan Jarratt, and Cheryl Glenn (among others) note the exclusion of women from ancient schools of rhetoric, yet assert the participation of women in rhetorical activities. “Re-Membering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities” recovers Hypatia of Alexandria (355-415 ACE) as a skilled rhetorician and instructor of note who taught in Alexandria, Egypt. I posit that Hypatia learned rhetorical strategies in order to lecture in public and private, administer her own school, and advise high-level political leaders. My recovery of Hypatia recreates the historical milieu of Roman Alexandria including Alexandria‟s ethnically and religiously diverse population that served to empower her activities. My concern for discovering communities in which Hypatia engaged led me to explore pagan and Christian communities that believed the soul was without sex, and in which women were expected to be educated and participate as writers and teachers in their communities. My work breaks new ground because it identifies ancient women trained in rhetoric during Hypatia‟s life time as well those who were educated centuries before her; many of these women wrote and taught in their communities and Hypatia may have been familiar with their work through her access to the Library of Alexandria. I also offer a sustained critique of historiographical methods that may allow feminist historiographers to return to the ancient period to conduct much needed further research. 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 Minardi 2 of rhetoric, particularly for the ancient through early medieval periods, by considering a broader range of texts for evaluation. Chapter one explores the problems of received history and ways in which feminist historiographies may simultaneously disrupt the structure of history and recover women missing from histories of rhetoric. Feminist historiographers can re-member women by examining a broader range to include secondary texts, myth, legend, and archaeological evidence as legitimate basis of recovery work. I also argue that feminist historiographers trying to recover women are often overly dependent, for example, on works by Aristotle to identify Greek ideology from which to extrapolate the lived reality of women. Over dependence on canonical authors who express misogynist ideologies represent only one set of ideology about women; there are others that scholars may select to situate and empower historical women. Non- canonical ancient authors who wrote in support of women may equip feminist historiographers to identify alternate ideologies and extrapolate realities of ancient women that more accurately represent their lives, activities, and accomplishments. Chapter two considers Hypatia of Alexandria‟s context by recreating her historical milieu including aspects of the social, intellectual, and political situation in Roman Egypt. Roman Egypt in the fourth century was a syncretic mix of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman law and customs. The deep history of liberal Egyptian customs regarding women lay as a foundation under Greek, and later Roman ideals. In particular, women of Greco-Egyptian ancestry could follow either Egyptian or Greek law or custom and it was common for women to exploit both ethnic identities at different times for their best advantage. Unlike women living in other parts of the Mediterranean, many women living in Alexandria owned businesses and property. Alexandrian women were also more educated than their Mediterranean peers were. The Library of Minardi 3 Alexandria, with its vast holdings and ability to attract visiting or permanent scholars, belies the city‟s value of education. Although not officially admitted to schools of rhetoric, many more women were literate and well educated in a variety of areas than previous scholars have surmised. Chapter three recovers Hypatia of Alexandria as a teacher, philosopher, and
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