Passion and sensibility: The emotions in the thought of Mary Wollstonecraft

• Grant number: 25/13063-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Theory
• Principal Investigator: Eunice Ostrensky
• Grantee: Maria Luiza Pedreira Moretzsohn
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project proposes to investigate the relationship between reason and emotions in Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). The focus is on mapping the terms "passion" and "sensibility," their meanings and distinctions, especially in the context of the tensions between the social roles assigned to men and women. The research examines Wollstonecraft's critique of the language of sensibility, understood as an instrument for consolidating these gender divisions. In addition, the project analyzes the author's ambiguity in relation to this language, since, although she criticizes it, she also uses it, incorporating concepts and dichotomies associated with eighteenth-century male political discourse. It is considered that such appropriation may constitute a rhetorical strategy to question the very foundations of this discourse. (AU)