In this episode of the ClassicalU Podcast, Jesse Hake speaks with Jessica Hooten-Wilson about her forthcoming book on Christian women whose lives and work have often been neglected because they are “too Christian for the feminists and too feminist for the Christians.” Hooten-Wilson looks to women at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as models for overcoming false divides between home and work, motherhood and the life of the mind, and Christian faith and women’s public voices. Through figures such as Anna Julia Cooper, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edith Stein, Mother Maria of Paris, Kate Bushnell, and Julian of Norwich, she explores how narrative portraits can illuminate deeper questions of Christian anthropology, virtue, vocation, and formation. The conversation highlights the need for classical Christian educators to recover women’s stories within the living tradition, not as additions for novelty’s sake, but as models of human flourishing worthy of imitation. Hooten-Wilson also reflects on silence as contemplative stillness rather than speechlessness, motherhood as both biological and spiritual, and the way women’s voices strengthen homes, schools, churches, and culture. The episode closes with practical suggestions for introducing students to women in the tradition through texts by Julian of Norwich, Perpetua, Christine de Pizan, and others. You can find more of Jessica Hooten-Wilson work through her substack and her podcast. 

Suggested Reading & Resources:

• The Black Intellectual Tradition by Dr. Anika Prather, Dr. Angel Adams Parham, et al.
• The Passion of Perpetua by Mia Donato et al. 
• The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan
• The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers
• The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Complete 6-Book Set by Maryrose Wood
• Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress by Jessica Hooten-Wilson
• Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice by Jessica Hooten-Wilson 
• The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints by Jessica Hooten-Wilson

Suggested ClassicalU courses:

• Women in the Liberal Arts Tradition
• The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Great Conversation