Finding Lost Voices: Xantippe, Socrates Wife 5th–4th century BCE
A weekly email that brings back the voices of those who have been forgotten or misremembered
I can’t tell you how thankful I am for this community. Thank you all for your support over the last eleven months, as I’ve brought you posts every week about forgotten women. I have some exciting posts coming your way over the next few weeks, but this week, I’m taking a short break to express my gratitude to this community and to thank you for supporting the launch of my biography on Sanora Babb.
Today, I got to talk about Sanora Babb and be in conversation with a fellow poet, Kristen Hanlon, about Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb at the Alameda Public Library in Alameda, CA. It was a wonderful reading. But, during the introductions, I found out that Hanlon used to edit a journal titled Xantippe, which was named after Socrates’ wife. Never heard of her? Neither had I and I’ve been thinking about her ever since.
Xantippe was born around 440 BCE and was about thirty years younger than her husband whom she married in 423 BCE. Little is known about her except that she had three sons. She appears only once in Plato’s Phaedo, pictured sitting with Socrates the night before his execution by the Athenian Court. However, over the centuries, male writers have somehow contorted her image until she was transformed into a difficult wife. However, Christine de Pisan’s important The Book of the City of Ladies (written in 1405) brings back a more palatable version of Xantippe (that aligns with her one appearance in Plato), where she is depicted as trying to save her husband’s life by taking the poison from him the night of his execution. But after Pisan, the bad references continue. Xantippe is a lousy wife, an argumentative wife, a shrew woman who, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, pours a pitcher of urine on her husband’s head. This type of story, this misaligning of a female character, is so common. It’s a current one has to fight against to do this work.
These past six weeks since my book launched have been a whirlwind. I’ve read in Pasadena, CA (twice!), Napa, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Iowa City, IA, Sonoma, CA, San Rafael, CA, Santa Cruz, CA, Tulsa, OK, San Francisco, CA, Davis, CA, Berkeley, CA, Oakland, CA and Alameda, CA. (Thank you to all who came out!)
To finish out the year - tomorrow - December 2, 5:00 - at 6:30 PM PST I’ll be reading online with Debra Magpie Earling + Jamie Ford. And on December 11, I’ll be back in Austin, TX where I did all of the major research for my book, in conversation with Lisa Moore at Bookwoman at 7:00 PM. - https://ebookwoman.com/event/2024-12-11/book-talk-riding-wind-life-sanora-babb-iris-jamahl-dunkle-conversation-dr-lisa-l
To see my full calendar of events visit my events calendar.
What you can do to support my Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb
Purchase a copy here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/riding-like-the-wind/hardcover or buy a copy for a friend! If you’d like a signed copy, send me an email (iris.dunkle@gmail.com) and we’ll make arrangements.
Write an Amazon review (you can write one even if you didn’t purchase your book on Amazon). These make a big difference!
Share about my book on Substack and on social media (and don’t forget to tag me).
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iris.dunkle
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irisdunkle/Recommend Riding Like the Wind to your local library.
Choose my book for your book club book. (Here are book club questions to use at your book club).
Teach Riding Like the Wind and/or Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb in your classroom and let me know if you’d like me to visit your class!
Come to one of my events and bring a friend! (And don’t forget to say hello!)
Support Finding Lost Voices by becoming a paid subscriber. (It's just $5 a month or $80 a year).
Read Sanora Babb’s books like her masterpiece, Whose Names Are Unknown. Members have been receiving reading notes about this book over the past few weeks. If you are interested, you can find the posts here (must be a member to view the full posts):