Topic ­ Key thinkers

Mary Wollstonecraft

 Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Wollstonecraft is best known for “A Vindication of the Rights of ” (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

Barker-Benfield, G. J. 1989. ": eighteenth-century commonwealthwoman." Journal of the History of Ideas 50(1): 95-115. Boucher, David, and Paul Kelly (eds.). 2017. Political thinkers: from Socrates to the present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter on Wollstonecraft. Bromwich, David. 1995. "Wollstonecraft as a Critic of Burke." Political Theory 23(4): 617-634. Coole, Diana. 1993. Women in Political Theory. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Chapter 5. Conniff, James. 1999. "Edmund Burke and his critics: the case of Mary Wollstonecraft." Journal of the History of Ideas 60(2): 299-318. Furniss, Tom. 1993. "Nasty Tricks and Tropes: Sexuality and Language in Mary Wollstonecraft's ‘Rights of Woman’." Studies in romanticism 32: 177-209. Gatens, Moira. 1991. “’The Oppressed State of My Sex’: Wollstonecraft on Reason, Feeling and Equality.” In Mary Lyndon Shanley and Carole Pateman (eds.). Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, Lyndall. 2005. Mary Wollstonecraft: A new genus. New York: HarperCollins. Halldenhus, Lena. 2007. “The Primacy of Right. On the Triad of Liberty, Equality and Virtue in Wollstonecraft's Political Thought.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (1): 75–99. Janes, Regina M. 1978. "On the Reception of Mary Wollstonecraft's: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Journal of the History of Ideas 39: 293-302. Johnson, Claudia L. 2002. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jones, Chris. 2002. “Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindications and their Political Tradition.” In Claudia L. Johnson (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, Gary. 1992. Revolutionary : the mind and career of Mary Wollstonecraft. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. O'Brien, Karen. 2009. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pateman, Carole. 1989. The Disorder of Women. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Philp, Mark. 1986. “Mary Wollstonecraft and Political Justice.” In Mark Philp (ed.). Godwin’s ‘Political Justice’. London: Duckworth, 175­92. Sapiro, Virginia. 1992. A Vindication of Political Virtue: The Political Theory of Mary Wollstonecraft. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Barbara. 1983. Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century. London: Virago. Taylor, Barbara. 2003. Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomalin, Claire. 1992. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft. London: Penguin. Tomaselli, Sylvana. 1985. “The Enlightenment Debate on Women.” History Workshop 20: 101­24. Tomaselli, Sylvana. 2001. “The Most Public Sphere of all: the Family.” In Elizabeth Eger, Charlotte Grant and Clíona Ó. Gallchoir (eds.). Women, Writing and the Public Sphere 1700–1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 239–256. Weiss, Penny. 2009. Canon Fodder: Historical Women Political Thinkers. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1978. Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Boulder, CO: Broadview Press. Chapter 2. Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1989. A Wollstonecraft anthology. Janet Todd (ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Simone de Beauvoir

 She had a significant influence on both feminist and . Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography and monographs on philosophy, politics and social issues.  She is best known for “”, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism

Bair, Deirdre. 1991. , a Biography. London: Simon and Schuster. Bauer, Nancy and Simone de Beauvoir. 2001. Philosophy and Feminism. New York: Columbia University Press. Card, Claudia (ed.). 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Beauvoir, Simone. 1986. The Second Sex. London: Penguin Books. Introduction and Conclusion. Fallaize, Elizabeth (ed.). 1998. Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge. Fraser, Mariam. 1999. Identity without Selfhood: Simone de Beauvoir and Bisexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fullbrook, Edward and Kate Fullbrook. 1998. Simone de Beauvoir: a Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Moi, Toril. 1990. Feminist Theory and Simone de Beauvoir. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Moi, Toril. 1994. Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Simons, Margaret A. (ed.). 1995. Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Stavro, Elaine. 2000. "Re-reading The Second Sex: theorizing the situation." Feminist Theory 1(2): 131-150.

Judith Butler

is an American philosopher and theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of feminist, queer and literary theory.  Butler is most well-known for her books “: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity” and “Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’”, which challenge notions of gender and develop her theory of gender performativity. This theory now plays a major role in feminist and queer scholarship.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge. Preface, Chapter 1 and Conclusion. Diamond, Irene, and Quinby, Lee (eds.). 1988. Feminism and Foucault. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Heinamaa, Sara 1997. “What is a Woman? Butler and Beauvoir on the foundations of the sexual difference.” 12(1): 20­39. Hekman, Susan (ed.). 1996. Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. McNay, Lois. 1992. Foucault and Feminism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Nicholson, Linda (ed.). 1990. Feminism / Postmodernism. London: Routledge. Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. "The professor of parody." The New Republic 22(2): 37-45. Osborne, Peter, Lynne Segal, and Judith Butler. 1994. "Interview: Judith Butler: Gender as Performance." Radical Philosophy 67. Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence." : Journal of women in culture and society 5(4): 631-660. Salih, Sara. 2002. Judith Butler. London: Routledge. Salih, Sara. 2004. The Judith Butler Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Stocker, Susan. 2001. “Problems of Embodiment and Problematic Embodiment.” Hypatia 16(3): 30­55. Symposium on Intersexuality. 2001. Hypatia 16(3): 126­148. Vasterling, Veronica. 1999. “Butler’s Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment.” Hypatia 14(3): 17­38.