Early Modern Inequalities

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The early modern period witnessed increasing challenges to the hierarchies that dominated political life, as well as attempts to re-entrench them. Keeping with the conference’s theme of “Populism and Privilege,” the papers on this panel focus on attempts to navigate these hierarchies and the asymmetrical relationships characteristic of them: between the elite and the masses, rich and poor, men and women, and religious majorities and minorities. Bogiaris argues that we should attend to Niccolò Machiavelli’s literary works in order to understand how the Florentine leveraged claims of knowledge of the divine and the supernatural in order to manipulate the masses. Dyer’s paper demonstrates how Rousseau's critique of economic inequality extends the concept of republican liberty through its exploration of social domination subverting the general will. Gallagher focuses on the theory of political freedom that emerges from Mary Astell’s proposal for an academy that would permit women to overcome oppressive customs. Power emphasizes the tension between shared values and individual conscience in the work of Estienne de la Boétie, as well as its relevance to contemporary debates over religious freedom. The panel will be of particular interest to those working on the history of political thought; early modern thought; politics and literature; and theories of freedom.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 1: Political Thought and Philosophy: Historical Approaches

Individual Presentations

• Philosophical Fables: The Critique of Eros in Machiavelli’s Literary Works - Guillaume Bogiaris, University of West Alabama

• Rousseau and the Socialization of Republican Liberty - Megan Kathleen Dyer, Texas A&M University

• Mary Astell and Political Freedom - Megan Gallagher, University of Alabama

• Estienne de la Boétie’s Civil Theology and the Paradox of Liberty - Catherine R. Power, Glendon College, York University

Chair

• Theodore Christov George Washington University

Discussant

• Daniel Luban University of Oxford