Women and the Question of Canonicity

Abstract

My point is not to object to Froula's attempt to influence the profession in such a way as to acquire more of its privileges and powers. Her desire to get more of the action is based upon rights equal to the rights of the rest of us. It might even be argued that she has, like Orwell's pigs, a more equal right to the action, in view of the fact that women have only recently found their way into academia ('affirmative action,' or rattrapage as it's called where I live). But what I don't think Froula has the right to do is to represent her desire for increased power within the academic world in terms of some vague, otherworldly eschatology and thereby to mystify her endeavor by relating it to an indefinite, indefinable, and thereby inaccessible spir