Never on Sunday: Feminist questioning of dominant epistemology and philosophical tradition

Abstract

Through the interpretation of the movie Never on Sunday (1960) by Jules Dassin, this paper opens some important epistemological questions from the feminist perspective. Namely, the film is set in the contemporary Greece, while the main characters are a prostitute Ilia and an American tourist Homer, who is at the same time disappointed in Greece and in the beautiful woman he meets. His inability to understand people and social context in which he finds himself, as well as his effort to educate Ilia and impose her his own values and ideas about ancient Greece reveal much of chauvinism and cultural colonialism, opening questions crucial for feminist and other critical epistemologies which are: who produces knowledge, for whom and how to approach it critically. Finally, through the interpretation of Ilia’s attitude to knowledge, I will turn also to the feminist notion of embodied feminist subject. Apart from that, I will deal with hegemonic attitude of the West towards ancient Greek past.

Keywords

• dominant epistemology
• critical thinking
• feminist knowledge
• never on sunday