Did women have an Enlightenment? Did new modes of scientific and philosophical inquiry challenge the traditional gender order or provide fresh justifications for male dominance? Could the ‘rights of man’ be extended to include women? This course will explore these and related questions, using gender as a lens through which to illuminate and interrogate various aspects of the age of Enlightenment and Revolutions. A central theme of the course will be the complex and contradictory implications of enlightenment thought and revolutionary politics for women. We will consider the gendered meanings of key philosophical and political concepts such as reason and sensibility, nature and culture, virtue and effeminacy, and examine women's participation in various sites of intellectual and political activity from Masonic lodges and salons to the 'republic of letters' and the revolutionary crowd. Particular attention will be paid to the impact of the French Revolution on debates about women's rights and responsibilities and the feminist and counter-feminist arguments of the 1790s.
Seminars will focus on a wide range of philosophical, literary and political texts, including works by Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mary Wollstonecraft as well as less well-known writings from this era. Students will also be encouraged to make use of Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) and the rich set of periodicals and conduct literature available in the King’s Manor microfilm collection. While the main focus of the course will be on developments in Britain and France, examples from elsewhere in Europe and America may also be included.