My research deals broadly with the early modern history of European political thought, and sits at the intersection of political theory, intellectual history, and feminist theory. I am interested in seeing how historical perspectives can help us think through contemporary political problems or questions, in two ways. First, by reminding us of forgotten, alternative ways of thinking, and second, by showing us what we take for granted in political theory today. In my research, I show why going beyond the canon and taking into account neglected voices in history––in my case, primarily women’s voices––is a promising way of doing this.

Partisan Virtue 
The first book project, under review at Oxford University Press,  focuses on two such women political thinkers from opposite ends of the political spectrum: the Tory conservative and “first English feminist” Mary Astell (1666–1731) and the “first female historian” and radical republican Catharine Macaulay (1731–1791). Their identity as women and partisans placed them on the margins of politics––they were neither fully excluded nor included. As women, they were not allowed to run for public office or to cast votes. Yet they were nonetheless partisans who belonged to a political group and intervened in the principal debates of their time. As I show in Partisan Virtue, this marginal position enabled Astell and Macaulay to appreciate both the benefits of partisanship as a mechanism of political inclusion for those formally excluded from politics––a mechanism their male contemporaries ignored––and the dangers of the political virtues these men advocated to bridle partisanship.

The Politics of Ambition
My second book project traces the meaning of ambition in seventeenth-century England, among both male and female thinkers. Ambition has been largely overlooked by both political theorists and historians of political thought. Nonetheless, ambition plays a key role both in political theory today, as well as in the past. As one of the first book-length contextual histories of ambition, The Politics of Ambition aims to shed light on the complicated relationship between ambition, politics, and feminism.