Synopses & Reviews
On January 6, 1537, Lorenzino deand#8217; Medici murdered Alessandro deand#8217; Medici, the duke of Florence. This episode is significant in literature and drama, in Florentine history, and in the history of republican thought, because Lorenzino, a classical scholar, fashioned himself after Brutus as a republican tyrant-slayer. Wings for Our Courage offers an epistemological critique of this republican politics, its invisible oppressions, and its power by reorganizing the meaning of Lorenzinoand#8217;s assassination around issues of gender, the body, and political subjectivity. Stephanie H. Jed brings into brilliant conversation figures including the Venetian nun and political theorist Archangela Tarabotti, the French feminist writer Hortense Allart, and others in a study that closely examines the material basesand#151;manuscripts, letters, books, archives, and bodiesand#151;of writing as generators of social relations that organize and conserve knowledge in particular political arrangements. In her highly original study Jed reorganizes republicanism in history, providing a new theoretical framework for understanding the work of the scholar and the social structures of archives, libraries, and erudition in which she is inscribed.
Review
and#8220;A thought provoking discussion about research practices . . . and the ways in which the organization and transmission of knowledge relate to social and political organizations and arrangements.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Ingenious. . . . The whole book is deeply researched. It is extraordinarily well planned and executed. . . . [Jed] is to be warmly congratulated.and#8221;
About the Author
Stephanie H. Jed is Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of Chaste Thinking: The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of Humanism.