My research deals broadly with the early modern history of European political thought. More specifically, I am interested in the way female political theorists in early modern England were engaging with political questions and concepts. How is it that they viewed themselves, and were viewed by others, as political writers, whilst still being very much excluded from politics in the sense we tend to think of it today? What were the mechanisms of political inclusion and exclusion in early modern England? Is there something unique about the ‘exiled’ perspective of those forcibly removed from the realm of politics? These questions run as a red thread through both my doctoral research, which examines the role of partisanship in the political thought of Mary Astell and Catharine Macaulay, and my proposed postdoctoral research, which will examine the history of the concept of ambition from the perspective of female political theorists. As an Junior Postdoctoral Fellow, I would transform my PhD thesis into a book manuscript by looking at the contrast between Astell and Macaulay and the Bluestockings, and I would lay the groundwork for my postdoctoral project, will trace the meaning and usage of ambition in early modern England, whose contributions will be both historical, as the history of ambition is neglected, and theoretical, as it will speak to contemporary political theories which assume that ambition is a desirable disposition, without explicating what is meant by ambition.