NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND THE FEMALE BODY: how do these three terms intersect in radical feminist discourses of the 1790s? The works of writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Helen Maria Williams, and Charlotte Smith advocate immediate reform in the English nation, reform premised on the ideals of the French Revolution. The French Revolution serves as an example, in these texts, of the potential for social transformation, for the renewal of a national culture freed from the bondage of tradition and prejudice. Within the context of social reform, women play an integral role in the realization of a democracy, forming the backbone of the model state as educated mothers and wives. In this ideal nation, the erotically decadent female body will wither away, and ungendered minds will flourish in the healthy climate of a revitalized culture. 1 But the three terms of my title do not dovetail as neatly as these opening sentences might imply. The French Revolution represents not simply a cause for celebration in the writings of English radicals in the 1790s, but also a source of consternation, marking the potential for violence in the social body, violence inimical to the disembodied ideals of equality, fraternity, and liberty. Moreover, the revolution has the ability to evoke xenophobic anxiety by virtue of its French origins, origins which, in the minds of English nationalists, might hinder or taint its progression. Like the