'This is compelling memoir combined with rigorous thinking and analysis that prompts questions about how we live.
'The concerns of philosophy are important to us all, yet the voices and thoughts of women have often been missing from the conversation. In this extraordinary new book, award-winning Australian writer Julienne van Loon addresses the work of leading international women thinkers. She discusses friendship with pre-eminent philosopher Rosi Braidotti, wonder with cultural historian Marina Warner, play with celebrated novelist Siri Hustvedt, love with cultural critic Laura Kipnis, work with socialist feminist Nancy Holmstrom, and fear in relation to the work of Helen Caldicott, Rosie Batty and Julia Kristeva.
'By constantly linking the personal and the political, and prompting insightful questions about how we live today, van Loon invites us into a lively exchange of ideas with these remarkable women. This deeply thoughtful book urges readers to look anew at the question of what it means to live a good life.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'An insightful foreword by Anne Summers gives you hint of this philosophical book that celebrates being a woman. It is a compelling piece of art, autobiography and scholarship full of enchantment with play. It offers in its meditative approach to the everyday a journey that is also an inspiration, a sharing that is also a nudging in its sublime gaze at thought, emotion, reaction and contemplation.' (Introduction)
'The Cartesian dictum ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’, I think, therefore I am, states that the proof of our existence lies in our ability to contemplate our existence, to doubt, to think. Julienne van Loon in The Thinking Woman forces us to confront this notion as part of a six-chapter, part memoir, part study of philosophical thought. With the help of six women prolific in their fields of study, van Loon critically interrogates thought, the importance of the act of thinking, and what it means for our existence. She starts with a chapter titled ‘Love’, followed by ‘Play’, ‘Work’, ‘Fear’, ‘Wonder’, and ‘Friendship’. Each is an amalgam of van Loon’s lived experiences and her intellectual engagement with the ideas of women thinkers including Laura Kipnis, professor of media studies at Northwestern University in Chicago, novelist Siri Hustvedt, socialist feminist Nancy Holmstrom, French feminist and structuralist philosopher Julia Kristeva, psychoanalyst and feminist critic, Marina Warner, and the cultural historian Rosi Braidotti. This polyvocal discourse leaves the reader with a wholesome and new understanding of the dynamics of life.' (Introduction)
'Novelist and academic Julienne van Loon does not doubt that the thinking woman is ‘alive and well’, but when she scans the (mostly) male names in bookstore philosophy sections and the (mostly) male staff lists of university philosophy departments, she wonders where they are hiding. Some, van Loon contends, were cast out from ‘capital-p Philosophy’ or were never admitted in the first place. Many, she notes wryly, are simply having a better time elsewhere. The Thinking Woman is van Loon’s attempt to draw attention to the careers and contributions of leading female philosophers, while using their ideas to flesh out what constitutes a good life for women. What are the necessary material and emotional requirements for women to live fulfilling lives? And how are these lives circumscribed by misogyny and gender inequality?' (Introduction)
'The Cartesian dictum ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’, I think, therefore I am, states that the proof of our existence lies in our ability to contemplate our existence, to doubt, to think. Julienne van Loon in The Thinking Woman forces us to confront this notion as part of a six-chapter, part memoir, part study of philosophical thought. With the help of six women prolific in their fields of study, van Loon critically interrogates thought, the importance of the act of thinking, and what it means for our existence. She starts with a chapter titled ‘Love’, followed by ‘Play’, ‘Work’, ‘Fear’, ‘Wonder’, and ‘Friendship’. Each is an amalgam of van Loon’s lived experiences and her intellectual engagement with the ideas of women thinkers including Laura Kipnis, professor of media studies at Northwestern University in Chicago, novelist Siri Hustvedt, socialist feminist Nancy Holmstrom, French feminist and structuralist philosopher Julia Kristeva, psychoanalyst and feminist critic, Marina Warner, and the cultural historian Rosi Braidotti. This polyvocal discourse leaves the reader with a wholesome and new understanding of the dynamics of life.' (Introduction)
'An insightful foreword by Anne Summers gives you hint of this philosophical book that celebrates being a woman. It is a compelling piece of art, autobiography and scholarship full of enchantment with play. It offers in its meditative approach to the everyday a journey that is also an inspiration, a sharing that is also a nudging in its sublime gaze at thought, emotion, reaction and contemplation.' (Introduction)
'Novelist and academic Julienne van Loon does not doubt that the thinking woman is ‘alive and well’, but when she scans the (mostly) male names in bookstore philosophy sections and the (mostly) male staff lists of university philosophy departments, she wonders where they are hiding. Some, van Loon contends, were cast out from ‘capital-p Philosophy’ or were never admitted in the first place. Many, she notes wryly, are simply having a better time elsewhere. The Thinking Woman is van Loon’s attempt to draw attention to the careers and contributions of leading female philosophers, while using their ideas to flesh out what constitutes a good life for women. What are the necessary material and emotional requirements for women to live fulfilling lives? And how are these lives circumscribed by misogyny and gender inequality?' (Introduction)
