About

Dorota Dutsch is a Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds an MA from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a PhD from McGill University in Canada, obtained in 2000. Her academic career includes teaching positions at the Jagiellonian University and Université de Montréal, as well as work as an exchange scholar at the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. Her research focuses on the interface of gender and knowledge in literary texts, ranging from Greek philosophical prose to Roman comedy. She has explored women's contributions to global philosophical traditions, with her most recent book examining ancient ideas about the gender of knowledge and women's roles in philosophical discourse. Professor Dutsch is actively involved in graduate supervision, particularly in gender studies, women in ancient philosophy, Roman drama, and reception. Her publications include books on ancient women philosophers, Pythagorean women, and Roman comedy, along with numerous articles and book chapters on related topics.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Art
• History
• Computer Science
• Literature
• Art history
• Psychology
• Theology
• Linguistics
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Forgeries and Fictions in Rome: From Pseudo-Numa to Ovid’s Pythagoras

  Verlag Karl Alber eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• O’Reilly, Katharine, and Pellò, Caterina (eds.). <i>Ancient Women Philosophers: Recovered Ideas and New Perspectives</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2023, xv + 272 pp.

  Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie · 2024-12-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
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• Euripides on Epistemic Injustice? Interpreting the Fragments of Melanippe Sophe and Desmotis

  2024-03-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Epistemic injustice, wrongs that hurt people in their capacity as knowers, is one of the key concepts in the rapidly expanding field of inquiry situated at the confluence of ethics and epistemology. 1 The field has been outlined by the British philosopher Miranda Fricker. Her book, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, “explores the idea that there is a distinctly epistemic kind of injustice,” which occurs in everyday epistemic practice (2007: 1). Unequal distribution of epistemic authority is a long-standing concern of postcolonial and feminist scholars. It has informed, for example, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s (1988) iconic question “Can the subaltern speak?” and Patricia Hill Collins’ analysis of the intersections of knowledge, identity, and power (1990). 2 Fricker’s analysis is nonetheless groundbreaking in its clarity and precision. She describes two kinds of injustice: testimonial, in which a person is “wronged in their capacity as giver of knowledge,” and hermeneutical, in which a person is “wronged in their capacity as subject of social understanding” (2007: 7). Framing her work in terms of virtue epistemology, she further posits two corresponding corrective virtues of epistemic and hermeneutical justice that can help right the wrongs. 3 Most of Fricker’s seminal book is dedicated to testimonial injustice (and justice) 4 ; she presents injustice in terms of “economy of credibility,” calling attention to instances of “credibility deficit,” in which the speaker is misjudged by the hearer due to pervasive identity prejudice (Chapter 2). In her account, in such situations, the speaker suffers an injustice, that is, an ethical wrong, which affects her specifically in her capacity as knower, and thus constitutes an epistemic wrong. 5 “Testimonial injustice” of this kind typically occurs in verbal interactions, including fictional ones represented in literary texts. 6 Literary texts from the past record both routine and innovative deliberations, offering insights into past epistemic cultures (cf. below, Section 2.5).

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• Pictures from an Exhibition

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-10-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Chapter II collects and analyses the Greek sayings that circulated under Theano’s name, and briefly discusses the Syriac collection. It situates Theano in the gallery of sages and clever women whose personae were represented and repeatedly performed through <italic>chreiai</italic>. Theano articulates her program within a greater network of sayings and anecdotes, including sayings of clever courtesans, Sappho, Diogenes, Herodotus, and Spartan women, to then be deployed in intellectual games by men—and women. The chapter draws attention to the tactics of appropriation, allusion, and citation that connect Theano’s aphorisms to that network. The sayings allude to tensions between the Pythagorean and Cynic ideas about sex, marriage, and women’s education; they reveal a debate on women’s role as defined by the teachings of the two schools. The extensive Syriac collection is linked to a group of Greek sayings that present Theano as a universal sage whose pronouncements matter to men as much as to women.

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• Treatises

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-10-29

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  T <bold>142.17–145.6</bold>; Stob. <italic>Anth</italic>. 4.28.19 Hercher p. 688 (Mullach 2 p. 34) Περικτιόνης Πυθαγορείας‎ ἐκ τοῦ Περὶ γυναικὸς ἁρμονίας‎. <bold>1.</bold> ¹Τὴν ἁρμονίην γυναῖκα νώσασθαι δεῖ‎ φρονήσιός τε καὶ σωφροσύνης πλείην‎· κάρτα γὰρ ψυχὴν πεπνῦσθαι‎ δεῖ εἰς ἀρετήν‎, ὥστ...

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• Theophylact Simocatta, Theano to Eurydice

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-10-29

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  Zanetto 3 Θεανὼ Εὐρυδίκῃ‎ Ὁ φυσικός σοι κόσμος παρῴχηκε‎, καὶ ῥυτίδων ἐγγὺς ἡ εὐπρέπεια‎· σὺ δὲ παραχαράττειν ἐπιχειρεῖς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐπιπλάστῳ κόσμῳ τοὺς ἐραστὰς φενακίζουσα‎. πειθάρχει τῷ χρόνῳ‎, γραΐδιον‎· οὐ γὰρ εὐπρεπεῖς οἱ λειμῶνες ἐν μετοπώρῳ τοῖς ἄνθεσι‎. ...

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• Note on Text and Translations

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Philosophy
  • Theology

  Part III features the Greek texts and English translations of two treatises and nine letters attributed to Pythagorean women. Fragment I of Perictione’s <italic>On Woman’s Harmony</italic> presents a theory of harmony and gives specific instructions on how a woman may achieve it. Phintys’ <italic>On Woman’s Self-Restraint</italic> engages with the question of whether virtues are gender-specific and, indirectly, whether women should practice philosophy. Two fictitious Doric letters feature practical advice for a virtuous woman. In <italic>To Cleareta</italic>, Melissa teaches that a wife’s duty is to accommodate her husband’s wishes and refrain from excessive adornment. In <italic>To Phyllis,</italic> Myia offers instructions on how to hire a wet-nurse who will be able to bring up a healthy infant. Three fictitious letters of advice by Theano argue that women must show exemplary self-restraint. <italic>To Euboule</italic> chastens a mother for indulging her children; <italic>To Nicostrate</italic> advises a wife to tolerate her husband’s philandering; <italic>To Callisto</italic> instructs her addressee how to treat slave-women. Four playful late antique notes ventriloquizing Theano, <italic>To Rhodope, To Eucleides, To Timonides</italic>, and <italic>To Eurydice,</italic> engage with the earlier letters; as does <italic>Theano to Eurydice</italic>, composed by the historian Theophylact Simocatta.

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• Conclusion

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020-10-29

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  The Conclusion brings together the views on the gender of knowledge as found in Pythagorean texts. The texts repeatedly consider the possibility that philosophy is a female as well as male endeavor. Because female philosophizing is always contingent, it is crucial to approach these testimonies with a mixture of suspicion and belief. Pythagorean women philosophers exist not as textual representations of discrete historical figures, but as tangled entities, straddling history and fiction. From ancient fragments we may create modern narratives of exclusion or inclusion. However, the persistent presence of women in representations of Pythagorean history bears witness to the Greek writers’ conviction that women have the capacity to contribute to philosophical knowledge and have done so in the past.

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• Prologue

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Literature
  • History

  The Prologue considers early testimonies to Pythagoras’ teachings which present him as particularly interested in different subjectivities. Three strands of the tradition emerge. The first shows Pythagoras as a compassionate sage, who, according to a tradition (possibly humorous) recorded by disciples of Aristotle, might himself have once inhabited the body of a beautiful <italic>hetaera</italic>. The second shows Pythagoras as a man proficient in different kinds of knowledge, and an orator able to offer appropriate advice to diverse groups of people, including women. In the third strand of the tradition, women become subjects, rather than objects of knowledge, and Theano appears as Pythagoras’ counterpart.

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• Introduction

  2020-03-04

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Frequent coauthors

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  US Forest Service

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  Northwestern University

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