Born: 1820Died: 1879 Begum Hazrat Mahal was the wife of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. She was a real graceful lady, whose beauty had an unbeatable charm. She was also known as the Begum of Awadh. When her husband was exiled to Calcutta (now Kolkata), she took the responsibility of managing the affairs of the state […]
Born: 20 October, 1867, IrelandDied: October 13, 1911. Born as Margaret Elizabeth Noble, Nivedita was more popularly known as sister Nivedita. She was an Anglo-Irish social worker, who was one amongst the many disciples of Swami Vivekananda. She came across Swami Vivekananda in the year 1895 in London. It was the Swami, who called her
Born: 27th September 1953, Sudhamani Mata Amritanandamayi is a great spiritual leader, who is affectionately known as ‘Amma’ by her followers. People have a lot of reverence for her. She was born as Sudhamani on 27th September 1953 in a small village of Parayakadavu. Also called the “hugging saint” by the people, she is a
Born: Feb 3, 1909, Paris, FranceDied: Aug 24, 1943, Ashford, Kent, England Simone Weil was a French social philosopher, mystic, and political activist, whose writings influenced French and English social thought. Born in Paris, Weil was a precocious child. In 1928, she entered the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, graduating in 1931. While teaching in secondary
Born: October 31, 1903, Camberley, Surrey, EnglandDied: August 5, 1983, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire Joan Robinson (1903-1983), British economist and writer, credited with making many significant contributions to the field of economics. Born Joan Violet Maurice, in Camberley, Surrey, England, Robinson received a degree in economics from Cambridge University, England, in 1925. In 1926 she married Austin
Born: August 31, 1870, Chiaravalle, near Ancona, ItalyDied: May 6, 1952, Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands Maria Montessori was an Italian educator and physician, best known for developing the Montessori method of teaching young children. She introduced the method in Rome in 1907, and it has since spread throughout the world. The Montessori method stresses the
Born: Dec 20, 1895, New York, U.S.Died: July 17, 1985, Old Lyme, Connecticut Susanne K. Langer was an American philosopher, who wrote extensively on aesthetics and on analytic and linguistic philosophy, born in New York City. After graduation from Radcliffe College, she lectured at Columbia University (1945-50) and then served as professor of philosophy at
Born: June 24, 1941, Sliven, BulgariaJulia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-born French psychoanalyst and literary theorist, who, drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis and structuralist linguistics, has analyzed the relationship between language, society, and the self.In Semeiotiké, she argues that the self is not a stable, autonomous entity, but the product of language. Consequently, those elements that are
Born: 1932, Belgium Irigaray is a French feminist psychoanalyst and philosopher who examined the uses and misuses of language in relation to women.Irigaray was a member of the Freudian School of Paris, founded by Jacques Lacan, and taught at the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes from 1968 until she was dismissed in 1974 because of her
Born: c. 370, Alexandria, EgyptDied: March 415, Alexandria Hypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics.The daughter of Theon, also a notable mathematician and philosopher, Hypatia became the recognized head of the Neoplatonist school of philosophy at Alexandria about 400, and her eloquence, modesty and beauty, combined with her
Born: September 16, 1885, Blankenese,near Hamburg, GermanyDied: December 4, 1952, New York, U.S. Karen Horney was a German American psychiatrist, born in Hamburg, and educated at the universities of Freiburg and Berlin. She was an instructor at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Berlin from 1920 to 1932, when she immigrated to the United States. After
Born: July 10, 1846, Röcken, near Lützen,Prussia [Germany]Died: Nov 8, 1935, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach [Germany] Elisabeth was the sister of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who became his guardian and literary executor.An early believer in the superiority of the Teutonic races, she married an anti-Semitic agitator, Bernhard Förster. In the 1880s, they went to Paraguay and
Born: March 30, 1863, Hartford, Conn., U.S.Died: Feb 26, 1930, Newton, Massachusetts Calkins was a philosopher, psychologist, and educator, the first American woman to attain distinction in these fields of study.Calkins grew up mainly in Buffalo, New York, and moved with her family to Newton, Massachusetts, in 1880. She graduated from Smith College in 1885,
Born: AD 45, Anling, Gufang [now Xianyang,Shaanxi province], ChinaDied: c. 115, China Ban Zhao was a renowned Chinese scholar and historian of the Dong (Eastern) Han dynasty.The daughter of a prominent family, Ban Zhao married at age 14, but her husband died while she was still young. She never remarried, devoting herself instead to literature
Flourished AD 430-485 Asclepigenia was a Greek philosopher of the Neo-Platonist school, teacher and lecturer.After the death of her father, Plutarchus, Asclepigenia was active in perpetuating the eastern version of Platonism, in cooperation with her brother, Hiero. Upon the succession of Proclus as head of the school at Athens, Asclepigenia instructed him in the philosophies