SPAIS Lunchtime Talks are a chance to hear SPAIS lecturers and researchers offer their take on some of the big issues of the day. Talks will draw on their research and expertise, inviting us to think critically about events and ideas shaping popular discourse on politics and international relations today. Talks will last approximately 25 minutes, followed by a Q&A session. 

This talk reflects on the way recent campaigns to decolonise the university curriculum have led to a reassessment of key political thinkers, such as the pioneering 18th century philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Dr. Dodsworth situates Wollstonecraft's work within the wider debates of her time on the rights of all, globalisation, gender politics, and the slave trade. In doing so it reveals both her radicalism and the tensions within her argument, which, she argues, can help us reflect on our contemporary debates surrounding equality.