Silvia FediPostdoctoral Fellow (Incoming Fall 2024)

Silvia Fedi (Ph.D., Political science, University of Chicago) is a political scientist specializing in political theory.

Her work is situated at the intersection of feminist political theory and ancient Greek political thought, focusing on the gendered quality of concepts such as rule and power in ancient studies of regime. Her first book project, Ruled by Women: Gynocracy in Classical Greek Political Thought, studies ancient figurations of gynocracy, literally the rule (kratos) of women (gynē). Reading political, historical, and poetic texts, she contends that ancient political commentators used figurations of women’s rule to cast the most radical aspects of democracy as suspect by gendering them.

Her study suggests that tropes of gynocracy arose at a time of perceived political crisis (such as the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War) to undermine the political capacity of the demos, along with its decision-making ability, by rendering the political tools at its disposal effeminate. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences Division and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago.