Joanne Wright
Associate Professor - Dir. of Graduate Studies
Joanne Wright is the author of Origin Stories in Political Thought: Discourses on Gender, Power and Citizenship (UTP, 2004), which is a comparative study of the construction and use of narratives about the beginnings of politics in works by Plato, Hobbes, and second wave radical feminists. Since completing her PhD in political theory from York University in 1999, her research has centered on feminist analyses of early modern political thought and on interpretations of consent and sexual violence in law and in the Second Wave feminist movement.
Dr. Wright's recent work examines the meanings and intersections of public and private in the medical writings of John Locke and in the drama and orations of seventeenth-century political writer Margaret Cavendish. She is currently working on a study of women's war writings that encompasses ideas on violence and masculinity in selected works by Margaret Cavendish and Virginia Woolf.
In 2011-2012, Dr. Wright was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.
Dr. Wright co-edited, with Nancy Hirschmann, Feminist Interpretations of Hobbes (Penn State University Press, 2012), the first collection of feminist readings of Hobbes's works.
Recent Publications:
- Origin Stories in Political Thought: Discourses on Gender, Power and Citizenship. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
- "Reading the Private in Margaret Cavendish: Conversations in Political Thought," in British Political Thought in History, Literature and Theory, David Armitage, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 212-234.
- "Recovering Locke's Midwifery Notes," Feminist Interpretations of Locke, eds. Nancy Hirschmann and Kirstie McClure (Penn State University Press, 2007).
- "Going Against the Grain: Hobbes's Case for Original Maternal Dominion," Journal of Women's History, 14: 1 (2002), 123-148.
- "Consent and sexual violence in Canadian public discourse: reflections on Ewanchuk," Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 16: 2 (2001), 173-204.
Teaching areas:
Political ideologies & rights conflicts in North America
- POLS 1403 Contemporary Political Ideas & Ideologies
- POLS 3103 Rights in Conflict in North America
Second Wave feminist movement in North America
- POLS 2503 Women and Politics*
Feminist theory & women's political thought
- POLS 3443 Feminist Issues in Political Thought*
- POLS 3441 Women political thinkers*
Law and politics
- POLS 3257 Law and Politics in Canada
* can be taken for credit in Women's Studies.
Professor Wright joined the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick in 2005.
Contact Information:
Associate Professor - Dir. of Graduate Studies
Office: Tilley 216
Phone: (506) 458-7494
