Debra Bergoffen is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at George Mason University. Her book The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities (1997), and her most recent articles, including "Exploiting the Dignity of the Vulnerable Body," evidence her ongoing concern with feminist theory, women's rights and human rights.

Paula Ruth Gilbert is Professor of French, Canadian, and Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. Her research covers: nineteenth-century French Studies; Quebec Studies; violence and gender and violent women; narrative, gender, and human rights. Her most recent book is Violence and the Female Imagination (2006).

Tamara Harvey is Associate Professor of English at George Mason University. She is author of Figuring Modesty in Feminist Discourse Across the Americas, 1633-1700 (2008), and co-editor with Greg O'Brien of George Washington's South (2003). Her research focuses on women and early America, with an emphasis on hemispheric studies.

Connie L. McNeely received the Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University and is currently on the faculty of the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. Her books have included Constructing the Nation-State (1995) and the edited volume Public Rights, Public Rules (1998). Her current research and most recent publications address various aspects of culture, politics, social theory, and inequality.