This book examines the writings of seven English women economists from the period 1735-1811. It reveals that contrary to what standard accounts of the history of economic thought suggest, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women intellectuals were undertaking incisive and gender-sensitive analyses of the economy.

Women's Economic Thought in the Romantic Age argues that established notions of what constitutes economic enquiry, topics, and genres of writing have for centuries marginalised the perspectives and experiences of women and obscured the knowledge they recorded in novels, memoirs, or pamphlets. This has led to an underrepresentation of women in the canon of economic theory. Using insights from literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and feminist economics, the book develops a transdisciplinary methodology that redresses this imbalance and problematises the distinction between literary and economic texts. In its in-depth readings of selected writings by Sarah Chapone, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Mary Robinson, Priscilla Wakefield, Mary Ann Radcliffe, and Jane Austen, this book uncovers the originality and topicality of their insights on the economics of marriage, women and paid work, and moral economics.

Combining historical analysis with conceptual revision, Women's Economic Thought in the Romantic Age retrieves women's overlooked intellectual contributions and radically breaks down the barriers between literature and economics. It will be of interest to researchers and students from across the humanities and social sciences, in particular the history of economic thought, English literary and cultural studies, gender studies, economics, eighteenth-century and Romantic studies, social history, and the history of ideas.

About the Author

Joanna Rostek is Junior Professor of Anglophone Literary, Cultural, and Media Studies at the University of Giessen, Germany. She was a visiting scholar at institutions in Scotland, Poland, and the US and is co-founder of the research network Methodologies of Economic Criticism. She has published extensively on women's writing and on the relationship between literature, culture, and the economy.

Reviews

"In this stimulating study, Rostek adopts the radical premise that women writing about money across a range of genres should be classified as economists. She argues that while the emerging discipline of economics was marginalising the experiences of women as economic subjects, a great flourishing of alternative proto-feminist knowledge formation was taking place elsewhere, in the pages of novels, pamphlets and memoirs. Rostek's incisive readings allow us to appreciate the intellectual daring of relatively unknown writers such as Sarah Chapone, Priscilla Wakefield and Mary Ann Radcliffe while seeing even the works of Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen anew." - Professor E.J. Clery, English Literature, Uppsala University

"In this brilliant book, Joanna Rostek not only recovers a fascinating history of women writers as economic thinkers, but also challenges our very understanding of what constitutes 'the economy' and its study. A landmark contribution to both literary history and the history of economic thought." - Dr Paul Crosthwaite, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Edinburgh

"The Committee found your book to be highly thought-provoking, beautifully written and well-researched. It demonstrates how several late 18th and early 19th century English women writers analysed topics of central concern to feminist economics, such as the economics of marriage, property rights, employment and wage discrimination, and the undervaluation of care work. You make a convincing case that these writers should be considered economists, and that the insertion of their voices into the history of economic thought makes economic discourses and practices more comprehensive, pluralistic, and therefore, more realistic." - Carmen Diana Deere (Chair), Jane Humphries and Maria Floro, Suraj Mal and Shyama Devi Agarwal Book Prize Committee

Book Information
ISBN 9780367074272
Author Joanna Rostek
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 620g