Barbara Bodichon's Epistolary Education: Unfolding Feminism

This book explores the importance of letter-exchange in Barbara Bodichon's feminist development, as she mobilized partisans and secured signatures through chains of friendship letters. It assesses Bodichon's significance in the history of the womens movement in Britain and how she adopted, redefined, and challenged circulating discourses, contributing to the production of feminist knowledge.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 293 pages
Publication date: 01 July 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This groundbreaking book brings together feminist histories in education with an innovative approach to epistolary narrative analytics. In deploying the notion of the epistolary bildung, the author meticulously and eloquently demonstrates how the correspondence of Barbara Bodichon can shed fresh light on a range of personal problems and public issues in women's lives, which remain relevant today.

Maria Tamboukou, Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of East London, UK, praises this book for its assessment of Barbara Bodichon's significance in the history of the women's movement in Britain. By elaborating a conceptualization of letters as sources of feminist development, the book explores Bodichon's role as the leader of the first women's suffrage committee in England. The committee collected 1,500 signatures in favor of the female vote, which were presented in the House of Commons by sympathetic MPs to support the amendment of the 1867 Reform Bill.

This book delves into the significance of letter-exchange in Barbara Bodichon's feminist becoming. Bodichon managed to mobilize partisans and secure signatures through the widespread circulation of friendship letters across the country. Letters functioned as platforms where Bodichon not only made sense of her experiential input but also adopted, redefined, and challenged circulating discourses. Through these exchanges, Bodichon contributed to the production of feminist knowledge, intersubjectively and collaboratively, in dialogue with her addressees.

At the crossroads of history of feminism, gender history, and history of women's education, this book examines the importance of letter-exchange in Bodichon's development into one of the galvanizing figures of the women's rights movement in Victorian England. By analyzing the letters exchanged between Bodichon and her correspondents, the book sheds light on the ways in which women used epistolary networks to advocate for their rights and challenge patriarchal norms.

This groundbreaking work is a valuable addition to the field of feminist scholarship and will be of interest to scholars, students, and anyone interested in the history of women's education and the women's rights movement.

Weight: 405g
Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030414436
Edition number: 1st ed. 2020