Concept of a Female Genius

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Philosophy - Practical (Ethics, Aesthetics, Culture, Nature, Right, ...), grade: 1,0, University of Vienna (Philosophie), course: Feministische Ästhetik, language: English, abstract: In the following paper I am going to present Christine Battersby s text Gender and Genius, her methodes and goals, occuring critics and problems. The main problem is the question: Do we need the concept of a female genius? After Battersby s historical research about the concept of the male genius in history (especially in the history of art and literature) she points out, that she wants to invent a new concept of genius. After her demonstration that genius had definitly a clear male connotation, she doest t want to skip the notion genius but she wants to redefine it. She wants to invent the concept of a female genius. In paragraphe 2 I am going to point out some results of Battersby s work, that show why women were excluded for such a long time from any form of art production. In paragraphe 3 I try to explain with Battersby how and why women accepted this exclusion sometimes and how they tried to resist and to fight back this kind of misogyny. Paragraphe 4 should answer the question why Battersby s new concept of genius is called a female genius, while paragraphe 5 wants to bring in some arguments against the separation and categorization into female/feminine and male/masculine concept. The last paragraphe contains also a very short conclusion and my own point of view.