Women played an important part in Pythagorean communities, so Greek sources from the Classical era to Byzantium consistently maintain. Pseudonymous philosophical texts by Theano, Pythagoras' disciple or wife, his daughter Myia, and other female Pythagoreans, circulated in Greek and Syriac. Far from being individual creations, these texts rework and revise a standard Pythagorean script. What can we learn from this network of sayings, philosophical treatises, and letters about gender and knowledge in the Greek intellectual tradition? Can these writings represent the work of historical Pythagorean women? If so, can we find in them a critique of the dominant order or strategies of resistance? In search of answers to these questions, Pythagorean Women Philosophers examines Plato's dialogues, fragmentary historians, and little-known testimonies to women's contributions to Pythagorean thought. Adopting Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, Dutsch approaches such testimonies with a mixture of suspicion and belief. This approach allows the reader to alternate critique of the epistemic regimes that produced ancient texts with a hopeful reading, one which recognizes female knowledge and agency. Dutsch contends that the value of the Pythagorean text-network lies not in what it may represent but in what it is - a fictionalized version of Greek intellectual history that makes place for women philosophers. The book traces this alternative history, challenging us to rethink our own account of the past.

About the Author
Dorota M. Dutsch is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy: Of Echoes and Voices (OUP 2008) and co-editor of Women in Roman Republican Drama with Sharon James and David Konstan (Wisconsin 2015), The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean: Commemoration in Literature, Folk-song and Liturgy with Mary Bachvarova and Ann Suter (Cambridge 2015), and A Companion to Plautus with Fred Franko (Wiley-Blackwell 2020).

Reviews
Rather than seeking to establish the authenticity or otherwise of the texts attributed to or about Pythagorean women, Dutsch aims to consider these texts on their own merits, and to establish what they indicate about the gendering of philosophical knowledge in antiquity and the possible construction or acknowledgement of female intellectual possibilities ... her careful analysis of the evidence and her willingness to balance caution with optimism have produced a fascinating account of these challenging texts. * Jenny Bryan, Greece & Rome *
I highly recommend this book, for it fully succeeds in showing that Pythagorean women sages -- independently from their real, historical identity -- set out a strategy for teaching other women in their group that family is the space in which they can achieve outstanding moral value, the precinct in which they can give their 'philosophical' contribution. * Antonietta Provenza, The Classical Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198859031
Author Dorota M. Dutsch
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 530g
Dimensions(mm) 223mm * 147mm * 23mm