Madison R. Wolfert (she/her) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English and is pursuing a certificate in the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Before coming to Princeton, she earned her B.A. from Bowdoin College, where she completed a project on the natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish. Her research interests include trans studies, 17th and 18th century political theory, the environmental humanities, Dutch and German literature, and science fiction.

Her dissertation project, titled “Gender, Race, and Labor in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” examines the positioning of gender and sexuality as biopolitical techniques of population management in the literatures of seventeenth-century Britain, the Netherlands, and their colonies. In tracing texts as diverse as colonial travel narratives, the political writings of the English “true republicans,” and the utopian accounts of settlements founded by religious separatists, her project documents the interconnections of gender, race, and land in the founding of real and imagined early modern polities.

In addition to her research, Madison has taught several courses in the Department of English and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, including ENG320: Shakespeare I and GSS201: Introduction to Gender & Sexuality Studies. In Fall 2023, Madison will co-teach the interdisciplinary course she designed with Professor Russ Leo, ENG384/GSS394: Gender, Sex, and Desire in Early Modernity. Madison has also served as the Department of English Undergraduate Outreach Coordinator and made use of her Dutch language skills as Course Assistant to ENG448: Early Modern Amsterdam: Tolerant Eminence and the Arts, by supporting Princeton undergrads in their week-long visit to the Netherlands.