42 pages • 1 hour read
Silvia FedericiCaliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
How did “primitive accumulation” impact the lives of proletarian women?
Why were most of the people accused of witchcraft, in Europe and the Americas, women? Use examples from the book in support of your response.
What was the “anti-feudal struggle,” according to Silvia Federici, and why did it fail?
What was the primary cause of witch-hunting, according to Federici?
Investigate alternative explanations for the European witch hunts. How do other scholars’ arguments compare to Federici’s thesis?
What is the relationship between witch-hunting in Europe and witch-hunting in the Americas? How did they influence each other?
How did the scientific revolution and the rise of rationalism influence ideas about the body and labor?
The Middle Ages are often popularly represented as the “Dark Ages,” while the Italian Renaissance is considered a period of progress. Yet the witch hunts occurred simultaneously with this renaissance. How does Federici’s work challenge the popular notion that Renaissance Europe was “better” than the medieval period?
How does Federici fill voids in Marxist thought about capitalism’s development?
What can the modern world learn from Europe’s witch hunts?
