Intelligent Souls?: Feminist Orientalism in Eighteenth-Century English Literature

"Intelligent Souls? offers a new understanding of Islam in eighteenth-century Britain, exploring two overlapping strands of thinking about women and Islam that produced the stereotype that Islam denied women intelligent souls. Women writers of the period accepted the stereotype but used it for their own purposes, establishing common ground with men by leveraging the "otherness" identified with Islam to dispute British cultures assumption that British women were lacking in intelligence, selfhood, or professional abilities."

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 250 pages
\n Publication date: 30 May 2019
\n Publisher: Rutgers University Press
\n

"Intelligent Souls? offers a fresh perspective on Islam in eighteenth-century Britain. Cahill delves into two interconnected strands of thought regarding women and Islam, which give rise to the phenomenon of "feminist orientalism." The first strand examines seventeenth-century notions about the soul, which were employed to disparage religious and political opponents. The second trace the transmission of these ideas to Islam during the Glorious Revolution and the Trinitarian controversy of the 1690s. The convergence of these discourses, if not entirely responsible for, certainly exacerbated the stereotype that Islam denied women intelligent souls. Surprisingly, women writers of the period embraced this stereotype, utilizing it to challenge the prevailing belief in British culture that British women lacked intelligence, selfhood, or professional abilities. Cahill contends that Rowe, Carter, Lennox, More, and Wollstonecraft established common ground with men by leveraging the "otherness" associated with Islam to dispute the notion that British women were intellectually inferior. When Wollstonecraft penned A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she accepted this view as accurate, giving rise to "feminist orientalism," which introduced a false perception of Islam to the West that continues to this day.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press."

\n Weight: 366g\n
Dimension: 158 x 236 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781684480975\n \n