Jacqueline Broad, Monash University

Jacqueline Broad is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Philosophy Department of the School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. Her main area of research interest is early modern women's philosophy. She is the author of Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (CUP, 2002) and co-author (with Karen Green) of A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400-1700 (CUP, 2009). She has recently published a modern edition of Mary Astell's magnum opus, The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England (Toronto, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies and Iter, 2013).

"Broad has succeeded in writing a book that will be accessible to a range of readers, from undergraduates to specialists ... I predict that it will quickly become essential reading for anyone interested in Astell's work." -- Deborah Boyle, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

"...everyone will learn from this text, several debates about Astell are resolved in it, and Astell's philosophical status is generally elevated." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online

"Broad argues that Astell represents a distinctive female voice in ethics, since her ethical concerns are specific to women and are not represented in men's ethical writings. Instead of spending time trying to explain Astell's absence from philosophy, she shifts attention to the more positive issue of 'the implications of writing her back in.' One of the many merits of this study is that it suggests common ground between Astell's philosophy and themes of more interest to the secular present, including the question of moral freedoms, arguing that Astell finds echoes in the concerns of modern feminists...Jacqueline Broad's study of Mary Astell takes our understanding of Astell as a philosopher to a new level and will serve as a model for the study of other female philosophers." -- Journal of the History of Philosophy

"The reading of Astell that Broad presents here is a compelling one, and one that gives readers a way into an array of texts written in a variety of styles...Broad has worked the ground for future readers of Astell, and planted seeds for what can be rich and textured scholarship of Astell's philosophical programme in relation to that of her contemporaries." -- Hypatia Reviews Online