Enlightenment Voices: Mary Wollstonecraft

Enlightenment Voices: Mary Wollstonecraft Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Monday 23 to Friday 27 November 2009 (The Essay) Enlightenment Voices, a major series featured in The Essay, continues to look at the leading writers, scientists, philosophers and general movers and shakers who laid the foundations of the modern world. This week's focus is on Mary Wollstonecraft. 160/44; 83 MB total; sound quality very good (some voices were muted in the source) Nowadays, Mary Wollstonecraft is recalled mainly as a proto-feminist. Described as a "hyena in petticoats" and an "unsex'd female" in her day, she was to become a role model in the 20th-century fight for gender equality. Mary knew she was ahead of her time. In 1797, the year of her death, she wrote: "Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in and to throw off, by the force of their own minds, the prejudices which the maturing reason of the world will in time disavow, must learn to brave censure." Part 1 - Distinguished scholar Janet Todd considers Wollstonecraft alongside other great thinkers of the Enlightenment. She places her passionate belief in feminism within the context of a broader, radical belief in social reform, from state politics to inheritance, slavery, land ownership, capitalism and education. Part 2 - Janet Todd of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, a renowned scholar of early women writers, examines Wollstonecraft's love-hate relationship with the character and writings of the great Swiss Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Part 3 - Baroness Helena Kennedy, who has built a reputation as a fighter for civil liberties, human rights and social justice, dicusses how Wollstonecraft influenced her life and work. Producer: Beaty Rubens Parts 1-3 of 5

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Riklaa February 6, 2010 at 3:34pm

Enlightenment Voices: Mary Wollstonecraft

Part 4 - Scholar Janet Todd traces the complex emotional and intellectual trajectory of Wollstonecraft's reactions to events during the French Revolution in 1789, and its impact on her hopes and wishes for change in her native England.

Part 5 - Danish-born comedian, writer and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig explains her admiration for Wollstonecraft's book Letters Written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

parts 4-5 of 5
The Essay 091126-r3 Mary Wollstonecraft pt4.mp3

The Essay 091127-r3 Mary Wollstonecraft pt5.mp3

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Documentary, Docudrama, History, Biography & Historical Fiction

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