Patriarchal Moments Reading Patriarchal Texts

Patriarchalism is omnipresent in Western culture and it pervades the texts that have shaped this culture. From the creation story in the Bible to the ancient authors, from the Church fathers to the treatises of Enlightenment philosophers, right up to modern fiction, male authority over women, children and other dependents has shaped the nature of human relationships and the discourses about these relationships.

This collection of short essays offers fresh and novel readings of key texts in the history of patriarchalism as a concept of power. The texts selected are from political, religious and literary works and together the readings add new insights to a tradition that has never gone uncontested, yet is unlikely to disappear soon.

Cesare Cuttica is Maitre de Conferences en Civilisation Britannique, Univeristé Paris 8 - Vincennes, France.

Gaby Mahlberg is Lecturer in Early Modern British History at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK.

Introduction Cesare Cuttica and Gaby Mahlberg

PART ONE: The Bible & The Ancient World
1.The Bible Naomi Tadmor
2. The Koran Julia Bray
3. The Midrash Asaph Ben-Tov
4. Aristotle, Politics (4th century BC), or Sophocles, Antigone (441 BC) or Oedipus Rex (429 BC) Edith Hall

PART TWO The Middle Ages, Renaissance & Reformation
5. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana (426 AD)R.P.H. Green
6. Francesco Sansovino et al, Propositioni, overo Considerationi in Materia di Cose di Stato (1588), Silvia Evangelisti
7, John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet (1558) Anne McLaren

PART THREE: The Early Modern Period
8. Robert Filmer, Patriarcha (1630s/1680). Cesare Cuttica
9. Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (1698). Jonathan Scott
10. John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
11. Two Treatises of Government (1689) Mark Goldie
12. Mary Astell, Some Reflections on Marriage (1700) Carole Pateman
13. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734).Paul Baines
14, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile (1762). Sandrine Parageau
15. Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary, a Fiction (1788).Michelle Faubert
16. Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? (1784) Susan Mendus

PART FOUR The Nineteenth Century
17. Henri de Saint-Simon, On the reorganisation of European Society (1814) Daniel Laqua
18. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877) Charlotte Alston
19. Henrik Ibsen, A Dolls' House (1879) Arnold L. Weinstein

PART FIVE: The Twentieth Century
20. Franz Kafka, Letters to his father (1919).Oliver Jahraus
21 Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding (1932).Paul Julian Smith
22 Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks (1901)Anke-Marie Lohmeier
23 Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve (1977) Ruth Charnock
Conclusion
Gaby Mahlberg