The City of Ladies

In 1405, a remarkable work was published: The Book of the City of Ladies. In it, the philosopher and poet Christine de Pizan imagines what is now considered to be the first feminist utopia in Western literature: a city where there is perfect equality, and nobility is earned through intellect and virtue. Six hundred years later, during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, several female writers followed in de Pizan’s footsteps. In various literary genres—fiction, science fiction, poetry— they imagined the challenges facing a hypothetical community of women and the conditions that would lead to a society emancipated from the power dynamics between the sexes. These texts show that, since the fifteenth century, utopia has ceased to be an ideal model of society to become an ever-changing horizon that we must constantly strive towards and defend. Women don’t have the luxury of building a perfect city when there is still so much to fight for! These texts, read by actor Laure Werckmann, will be punctuated by musical interludes played by saxophonist Michael Alizon.

Avec
Laure Werckmann actress
Michael Alizon saxophonist

As part of Strasbourg - UNESCO World Book Capital 2024