While I am passionate about feminist philosophy as a whole, I am especially excited about the historically-overlooked women philosophers of the early modern period.

Publications

Work in progress

Journal Articles

• Early Modern Feminists on Wooing as a Gendered Epistemic Harm (2025), Feminist Philosophy Quarterly
• Margaret Cavendish's Feminine Utopias: Speech, Silence, and Gendered Space (2025​), Journal for New Narratives in the History of Philosophy
• Scudéry's Portraits: Patriarchy, Agency, and Genre (2024), British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
• Prejudice as Viciousness: Marie de Gournay and Anton Wilhelm Amo (2023), The Southern Journal of Philosophy
• Madeleine de Scudéry on Conversation and its Feminist Ends (2022), British Journal for the History of Philosophy
• Astell, Friendship, and Relational Autonomy (2021), European Journal of Philosophy.
• Mary Astell on Bad Custom and Epistemic Injustice (2019), Hypatia 

Book Chapters​​

• "Citizens, Workers, and Organizers: 19th/20th Century American Feminists on the Value of Women" (forthcoming), Esteem and Self Esteem: Rewriting the History of Philosophy, Routledge.
• "Emotions: Love, Anger, and Feminist Praxis" (2026), A Contemporary Introduction to Feminist Ethics, ​Routledge.
• "The Case for Malebranche's Feminist Potential" (2026), Oxford Handbook to Malebranche, Oxford University Press
• "Sex, Suffrage, and Marriage: Russell & Feminism" (2024), Philosophical Women in Russell's Circle, Palgrave Macmillan
• “Care Ethics: Love, Care, and Connection,” (2024), in Ethical Theory in Global Perspective, SUNY Press.
• "Mary Astell" (2023), Rethinking Political Thinkers, Oxford University Press.
• "Friendship as a Means to Freedom" (2023), The Routledge Handbook on Women and Early Modern Philosophy.

​Publications for a broader audience

• "Mary Astell," for the Wise Women series on Philosophy Talk: The program that questions everything" (2023).  Hosted by Josh Landy and Ray Briggs, via KALW 91.7 FM and Stanford University.
• “Season 3: Episode 2: Madeleine de Scudéry’s Illustrious Women: Interview with Allauren Samantha Forbes,” (2023) Extending New Narratives Podcast: New Voices in the History of Philosophy"
• “Mary Astell” (2022), Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy, Oxford University Press 
• “A woman philosopher calls out misogyny in the 17th century” (2020) in Aeon.
• “Mary Astell and Theories of Friendship” (2018) Project Vox’s blog Revealing Voices

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Book reviews 

• Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Alison Stone (2026), Journal of the History of Philosophy
• Self-Control​, Mary Brunton (2025​) Journal of Scottish Philosophy
• Women Moralists in Early Modern France, Julie Candler Hayes (2025) Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie​
• Elisabeth of Bohemia: A Philosopher in Her Historical Context, Sabrina Ebbersmeyer and Sarah Hutton, eds. (2023) Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Papers in development

• [removed; under review]
• Macaulay & Wollstonecraft: An Epistemology of Resistance (co-auth)
• Marriage and Alienated Labour: Cavendish on Chastity
• Marriage as Microcosm
• Himpathy, History, and Philosophy

Chapters under contract

• ​Margaret Cavendish's Social Epistemology

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Research Grants

I currently hold a SSHRC Insight Development grant ($61,724) for the project "The Metaphysics of Marriage: Modern Women Philosophers." Broadly, this project examines the ways in which modern women philosophers conceived of marriage as a philosophical concept and how their theorizing was embedded in larger ongoing socio-political debates (e.g., about slavery, political obligation, and about alienated labor). The project also examines the ways in which genre influenced what and how these philosophers theorized about marriage.

I, along with Elena Gordon, also hold a SSHRC Connection Grant for our recent event Women and Epistemic Emotions in the Early Modern Period at McMaster University on October 25-27 2024. Our event website is https://wephil.humanities.mcmaster.ca/. ​

We will be publishing papers from this conference in a special edition of the Journal of Modern Philosophy ​forthcoming in 2026.

Public Philosophy

In an effort to engage in public philosophy (harder than it looks!) I have also launched a Substack ("Cavendishing it Out") that is meant to provide fun, accessible historical 'hot takes' and earnest looks at contemporary problems through an historical lens. This is part of the Extending New Narrative group, broadly construed. While we are so, so new - beginning proper content mid-April 2026 - lots of very cool and interesting professional philosophers have agreed to lend their expertise to the project.   

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Research networks on early modern philosophers

Although research on early modern women philosophers is still fairly recent - only a few decades! - there is an extensive and productive research community. Below are links to some of the larger hubs of researchers working on these exciting and historically overlooked philosophers.

• Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy - link
• The Center for New Narratives in Philosophy - link
• Project Vox - link
• Center for Canon Expansion and Change - link
• Feminist History of Philosophy - link
• History of Women Philosophers and Scientists - link

And, in shameless self-promotion, some friends and fellow Astell researchers and I started the Friends of Mary Astell, an APA-affiliated group focused on Astell scholarship. The group is on hiatus, but you can check out our website (under development)  here.