(Un)Manly citizens

the long version

In (Un)Manly Citizens, political theorist Lori Marso explores an alternative vision of citizenship in the writings of French Enlightenment figures Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Germaine de Stael. This critique transgresses the boundary between political philosophy and literature in turning explicitly to fictional texts as the site of an alternative conception of the self, citizenship, and democratic politics. Marso departs from previous feminist scholarship on Rousseau by reading Emile and La Nouvelle Heloise from the perspective of his women characters. Germaine de Stael builds on the perspective of Rousseau's women to uncover the radical potential of the feminine as a way to reconceptualize citizenship. Marso's scholarship makes us aware of how early in the history of modern political thought the potential of an unmanly vision of citizenship as a radical critique of politics was already being discussed and formulated.