Amalia Holst: On the Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education

Amalia Holst's On the Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education (1802) is the first English translation of a pioneering work of German philosophy published under a woman's name. She argues that women should have unfettered access to the sciences and philosophy, challenging the gendered nature of the Enlightenment concepts that enabled men to establish women's subordinate status. This edition provides students and scholars with a valuable resource for understanding German philosophy and early feminist texts.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 17 August 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

This edition presents the first English translation of Amalia Holst's groundbreaking book, On the Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education (1802). In one of the earliest works of German philosophy published under a woman's name, Holst presents a manifesto for women's education that centers on a fundamental provocation: as far as the mind is concerned, women are equal participants in the project of Enlightenment and should thus have unfettered access to the sciences in general and to philosophy in particular. Holst's manifesto resonates with the work of several women writers across Europe, including Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Germaine de Staël. Yet, in contrast to the early works of feminism that we celebrate today, her book had little success. Its reception confronts us with a darker side of the German Enlightenment that, until recently, has been neglected. Holst sought to unearth the gendered nature of the fundamental concepts of the Enlightenment, including vocation, education, and culture, which enabled men to establish the subordinate status of women by philosophical means. However, her argument was scorned by male reviewers, who denied the very possibility of a woman philosopher.

With an introduction by Andrew Cooper, and translations of biographical material and early reviews, this edition provides students and scholars of German philosophy with a timely resource for developing a richer understanding of their field, and general readers with a powerful early feminist text that reveals the opportunities and difficulties facing women philosophers at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Weight: 406g
Dimension: 223 x 146 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192845948