The next issue (2025) of the Studi Jaspersiani Journal will be dedicated to the topic of Karl Jaspers and “the feminine”.
Edited by Orietta Ombrosi, Piergiacomo Severini and Stefania Tarantino
This issue of Studi Jaspersiani aims to highlight the relations that Karl Jaspers had with “the feminine” and the influences that this had on him. “The feminine” is here meant both in the sense of a sexual difference, that is how Jaspers conceptualized “the feminine” in its difference from the male, and on a relational level, namely how the philosopher approached the philosophical thought of female intellectuals of his period whom he frequented the most. In fact, considering the key role of the relationship with his wife Gertrud Meyer, who was a determining presence maybe also for the development of the philosophical proposals of Jaspers, it would certainly matter to consider and comprehend the role that the female perspective could have, or not, in this gestation. Moreover and more generally, no less significant would be to grasp the deepest philosophical sense that the whole female universe in all its declensions had for Jaspers, just as it would be interesting to decipher women’s concept and lived experience in the Jaspersian comprehensive and therapeutical methodology. Furthermore, there will be the opportunity to explore the presence of “the feminine” in Jaspers’ thought, bringing him into dialogue with female authors and philosophers whom he had a close intellectual relationship with. That is the case for example, first and foremost, of Hannah Arendt and Jeanne Hersch or other lesser-known ones, as Rachel Bespaloff, or also others who did not discuss directly with the philosopher but who could be compared with his thought by means of an a posteriori rereading. The role of the relationship with Arendt will be central but not exhaustive. Of course, space will be devoted not only to the effect of “the feminine” on Jaspers or to the extent of possible influences/interferences of the dialogue with female philosophers, friends, and colleagues, but also to Jaspers’ direct or indirect contribution to the development of feminine reflections and the originality of such reflections.
Hence, this issue invites scholars of the Jaspersian thought and of the thought of female philosophers of the 20th century to deal with the research and the investigation about the presence of “the feminine” within the Jaspersian pages, drawing from different subject areas and starting from different point of views and perspectives: from moral philosophy to the history of philosophy, from psychoanalysis to political philosophy, from sociology to æsthetics, from theoretical philosophy to political theory, in order to reflect about several topics, among which:
- The presence of “the feminine” into the theoretical development of Jaspers;
- The conceptual determination of the psychic and bodily experience of “the feminine”;
- 20th century female philosophers in relation to Jaspersian thought;
- The intellectual relationship between Jaspers and Hannah Arendt
- The rereading of historical and existential topics from a female point of view
- Jaspers’ legacy within contemporary female perspectives.
- Therapeutical and psychiatric experience with women
- The reading of “the male” and of “the feminine” into the Jaspersian thought
The abstract must be submitted before July 7th, 2024.
Notification of interest: before July 20th, 2024.
The paper must be submitted before April 31st, 2025.
Final submission: June 31st, 2024.
Abstract: 500 words max.
Paper: 6000 words max.
Please send your abstract by email at journals@orthotes.com.