Mary Wollstonecraft and Feminist Republicanism

Description

Mary Wollstonecraft is a writer whose work continues to provoke scholarly debate. But Wollstonecraft the historical figure often obscures her importance as a philosopher. Halldenius explores Wollstonecraft’s political philosophy, focusing on her treatment of republicanism and independence, to propose a new way of reading her work – that of a ‘feminist republican’. Wollstonecraft’s works of fiction and non-fiction are analysed and the use of her own experience of a lack of freedom (the lot of an eighteenth-century woman) is examined as a valid line of philosophical enquiry and not – as others have viewed them – as a form of autobiography. Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1: A Feminist Republican 1 Chapter 2: Liberty as Independence 19 Chapter 3: Rights 33 Chapter 4: Experiencing Unfreedom: The Stories of Three Women 51 Chapter 5: Acting Morally 75 Chapter 6: Revolution: The Political Circumstances of Action and Change 91 Chapter 7: Liberation: Economic Independence and Civil Existence 109 Epilogue: A Feminist without a Movement 129 Works Cited 133 Notes 141 Index 171