Feminism, absolutism, and Jansenism
Subtitle: Louis XIV and the Port Royal nuns
By: Daniella  Kostroun
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
ISBN-13: 9781107000452
Description: "Feminism, absolutism, and Jansenism chronicles seventy years of Jansenist conflict and its complex intersection with power struggles between gallican bishops, Parlementaires, the Crown, and the pope. Daniella Kostroun focuses on the nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, whose community was disbanded by Louis XIV in 1709 as a threat to the state. Paradoxically, it was the nuns' adherence to their strict religious rule and the ideal of pious, innocent, and politically disinterested behavior that allowed them to challenge absolutism effectively. Adopting methods from cultural studies, feminism, and the Cambridge school of political thought, Kostroun examines how these nuns placed gender at the heart of the Jansenist challenge to the patriarchal and religious foundations of absolutism; they responded to royal persecution with a feminist defense of women's spiritual and rational equality and of the autonomy of the individual subject, thereby offering a bold challenge to the patriarchal and religious foundations of absolutism"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Jansenism as a "woman problem"; title: Controversy and reform at Port Royal; title: Jansenism's political turn, 1652-1661; title: The limits to obedience, 1661-1664; title: A feminist response to absolutism, 1664-1669; title: The unsettled peace, 1669-1679; title: A royal victory, 1679-1709.