Talk 5: Women’s Writing of Harriet Taylor Mill and its Various Modes of Self-Expression. Talk 6: Karoline von Günderrode: Fragmentation, Philosophy, and Early German Romanticism

Elżbieta Filipow, Shamoni Sarkar, Marguerite El Asmar Bou Aoun (Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanese American University), Jil Muller (Paderborn University), Daniel Fischer, Katia Raya Rami

Register here: https://indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/156/

12.05.2026, 4.30-6pm (Paris time)

Elżbieta Filipow – Women’s Writing of Harriet Taylor Mill and its Various Modes of Self-expression

Harriet Taylor Mill (1807–1857) was a long-time friend, intellectual partner, and, eventually, wife of John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) – one of the main representatives of utilitarianism and an advocate of feminism. My preliminary research has shown that Harriet Taylor Mill is an almost entirely absent figure in the field of literary studies. The aim of my presentation will be to highlight her contribution to the development of women’s writing, aesthetics, and literary self-reflection, based on her essays in aesthetics, literary criticism, and poetry. Although the topic of Harriet Taylor Mill’s female writing is completely overlooked from the perspective of her contributions to social thought or feminist philosophy, it is, in my view, worth taking a closer look at these insufficiently explored aspects of various modes of self-expression in her literary activity. Doing so may show her creative output in a different light: as that of a writer with a critical sensibility towards literary work and as a poet addressing themes linked to emotions arising from motherhood and marriage. Particularly, this last element of her female voice inwriting may serve to complete her portrayal as a woman who attempted to reconcile her feminist beliefs with family life – a considerable challenge in the Victorian era. Ultimately, I will argue that it is possible to demonstrate that Harriet Taylor Mill’s works represents an example of female writing as a form of self-reflection, which ambivalently set for and against her own perception of the social issues related to gender inequality within the broader context of the role and place of women in Victorian society.

About the Speaker:Elżbieta Filipow holds MA in sociology and BA in philosophy. Since 2022 she is working as a research assistant in the Department of Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw and she is principal investigator in the research project entitled ‘The Place of Equality in John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism’ financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) and a research assistant in the project ‘Enlightenment-Era Pedagogical Reforms and Arguments against the Gendered Conception of Human Progress in Poland and Germany’ financed by National Agency of Academic Exchange (NAWA, Poland). She is completing her doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled ‘Perfectionism and Justice. The Equality of Women and Men in John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism’. Since 2024 she is doctoral student in a Doctoral School in Sociological Science at the University of Bialystok (Poland). Her doctoral dissertation focuseson the contribution of Harriet Taylor Mill into the canon of sociological thought. In 2024 she was an Academic Visitor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University and conducted research in The John Stuart Mill Library at Somerville College

Shamoni Sarkar - Karoline von Günderrode: Fragmentation, Philosophy, and Early German Romanticism

In this paper, I argue for a creative ethics grounded in fragmentation in the work of the early German romantic poet and philosopher Karoline von Günderrode. Scholarship on Günderrode is scant, but commentators have emphasized, among other themes, her novel environmental ethics and Naturphilosophie, as well as her original philosophy of gender and selfhood. However, the larger hermeneutics of the early romantic fragment as a form of philosophical communication has not been sufficiently investigated in terms of her philosophical conception, especially given her role as a woman on the fringes of the movement. With this in mind, I provide a close reading of Günderrode’s essay-fragment “The Idea of the Earth” (Die Idee der Erde) and her lyric poem “The Kiss in the Dream” (Der Kuss im Traume) to show how her concept of the spiritual will, life, and dream-inspired creativity all depend on an underlying conception of fragmentation at the core of willing, living, and dreaming. We are confronted with fragmentation as both a threat as well as a sustenance of our collective life on earth and of our creative communication. Therefore, writing in the fragment form is a direct expression of the pain of philosophizing and poeticizing from within a context of a world and a creative will that is consistently torn apart seemingly by its own volition. Günderrode’s work appeals to our imaginations to see and to use this pain to re-imagine the real rather than chase the ideal. Ideal unity functions more as a limit condition of this philosophical activity rather than as a destination.

About the Speaker: Shamoni Sarkar obtained her PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Riverside in Fall 2025. Her dissertation argued for a conception of openness in community in Early German Romantic philosophy. This is facilitated by the process of reading and understanding the early romantic fragment– in which finitude and infinitude work themselves out together. From 2023-2024, she was an associated doctoral fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin, funded by an Einstein Stiftung grant. In the future, she plans to focus more on women philosophers from the period, and on investigating alternative forms of ‘philosophizing’ as a form of community creation.