Sociable Women and the "Public" Sphere

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

German philosopher Jurgen Habermas' "bourgeois public sphere" imagined an institution that briefly held sway in eighteenth century urban European societies. In sociable spaces, such as coffee-houses or taverns, men of different allegiances gathered to discuss politics and worldly affairs. While women have been assigned a marginal position in the story of European sociability, literary texts offer a different reality. What were women's sociable spaces? What did it mean for a woman to be "sociable"? What was her stake in politics and worldly affairs? We will discuss how women writers and fictional heroines were redefining what constituted "public" and "private" while conducting politics in a distinct register. Whether it was the actress on the English stage, aristocratic women in French salons, the Bluestockings, or novelistic heroines shopping in London - the literary story of women's sociability is one that needs telling. We will read texts from authors such as Madame de Lafayette, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Virginia Woolf.