Mary Wollstonecraft

Susan Laird is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and Human Relations at University of Oklahoma, US, where she is also graduate program coordinator in Educational Studies. She is a past president of the Philosophy of Education Society and co-founder of the Society for Educating Women. Editor of Philosophy of Education 1997 and author of many articles and book chapters, she is best known for her philosophical and literary studies of education, gender, aesthetics and food ethics.

There can be little doubt that Laird's book will itself, become an integral and important part of future conversations about the life and philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft. To my knowledge, there is no more careful, imaginative, provocative scholarship on the coeducational thought of Mary Wollstonecraft than Laird's. -- Suzanne Rice, University of Kansas, USA Susan Laird's superb study of Mary Wollstonecraft succinctly examines her biography and role as a pioneer of feminism in order to fill in a neglected area in discussions of her achievement by addressing her revolutionary theories of coeducation. Laird masterfully analyzes her subject's prescient argument for the free national education of children that integrates students without regard to gender or class. She demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Wollstonecraft's legacy for 21st century educators, offering them a fresh perspective on traditional and contemporary educational thought. -- Beth Darlington, Professor of English, Vassar College, USA Susan Laird's sympathetic reading of Wollstonecraft guides non-specialist readers through the stylistic and contextual challenges of Wollstonecraft's writing, and her insightful and imaginative analysis of Wollstonecraft's influence on the development of co-educational theorizing invites contemporary readers to reflect on the problem of influence in feminist educational thought. -- Natasha Levinson, Associate Professor, Cultural Foundations of Education, Kent State University, USA Mary Wollstonecraft is a much-needed contribution the history of educational thought. Situating Wollstonecraft's work within its social, political, psychological and aesthetic landscape, Susan Laird has provided a critically astute rereading of coeducation that has significant implications for contemporary theory and practice. -- Susan Douglas Franzosa, Professor of Educational Studies, Fairfield University, USA

• Series Editor's PrefaceForewordAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I: Intellectual Biography 1. A Revolutionary Self-EducationPart II: Exposition of the Work 2. Coeducational Thought3. Monarchist Miseducation4. Republican CoeducationPart III: Reception and Influence of the Work 5. Coeducational Thought after WollstonecraftPart IV: Relevance of the Work6. The Art of Coeducational ThoughtBibliographyIndex