Political Thought And Intellectual History

Convenor : Professor John Robertson

The Faculty of History at Cambridge has long been distinguished for study of the history of political thought and the broad field of intellectual history.  The interests of members of this Subject Group engage with the multiple contexts, political and institutional as well as intellectual, in which past political, historical and philosophical texts were written.  Specific interests of Cambridge scholars include the interface between the history of political thought and modern political theory, the historical relationship between legal, moral and political thought, the formation of political economy, historiography, the history of natural philosophy and the history of scholarship.  Members of the Group remain at the forefront of teaching and scholarship in the field, continually taking the distinctive Cambridge approach to the history of political thought and intellectual history in fresh directions.

Research

The Faculty is strong in many different areas of research in political thought and intellectual history, but there are particular concentrations of expertise in the medieval and early modern period, in the period of Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and in the twentieth century and in current political philosophy.  A forum for the research of leading scholars in the field, from Cambridge and from across the world, is provided by the weekly Seminar in Political Thought and Intellectual History http://www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/seminars/index.html.   There are frequent public lectures in the field, notably the biennial J. R. Seeley Lectures in Political Thought, and the annual Balzan-Skinner Lecture.

Further details of the activities of the Group, including the Seminar, the Seeley Lectures, the Balzan-Skinner Lecture and other lectures and conferences, as well as of the publications of its members, can be found at the website of the Cambridge Centre for Political Thought: http://www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/index.php

Members of the Faculty have also been closely involved in editing the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. This series, published in a characteristic blue design by Cambridge University Press, comprises a collection of the core texts in the Western political tradition, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century. The Press also publishes a number of monograph series including Ideas in Context. Volumes of the  Cambridge History of Political Thought continue to be published, most recently The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, edited by Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys.

Graduate Teaching

The Faculty offers an intensive M.Phil Degree in Political Thought and Intellectual History. This interdisciplinary course is run jointly by the Faculties of History, Classics, and the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). Each year around twenty-five students from all over the world are admitted for the nine-month course. After the M.Phil course, a good proportion of these students move on to doctoral study in Cambridge and elsewhere.

Students at Cambridge studying for the Ph.D. in the field of political thought and intellectual history are served by regular meetings with their Supervisor, by the weekly Research Seminar in Political Thought and Intellectual History, which has two strands, one for established scholars, and one organised by and for younger post-doctoral scholars, research fellows and senior graduate students.  In addition a Graduate Workshop in the field is convened by the students themselves.

Holders of a Ph.D. in the field from Cambridge have been successful in obtaining research fellowships and teaching positions in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere, in departments of both History and Politics. Research resources in Cambridge for work in the field are among the best in the world; they include the extensive library of rare books that Lord Acton collected for his projected history of liberty.

Undergraduate Teaching

The Group is responsible for several papers in Parts I and II of the Historical Tripos, offering undergraduates opportunities to engage with different dimensions of the field in each year of their study.

In Part I there is a choice of two Themes and Sources papers, studied in the First Year: 'Nature and the City in Late Medieval Legal and Political Thought', taught by Dr Annabel Brett and Dr Magnus Ryan, and 'Utopian Writing, 1516-1789', taught by Dr Clare Jackson and Dr Richard Serjeantson

The History of Political Thought can be studied in more depth in two papers normally studied in the second year: 'History of Political Thought to c. 1700' and 'History of Political Thought from c. 1700 to c. 1890'.  These papers cobine the close study of canonical texts with opportunities to explore topics and themes which illuminate wider developments in the subject.

In Part II the same papers are also available in more advanced versions.  In addition, undergraduates can take a third paper in 'Political Philosophy and the History of Political Thought since c. 1890'. This paper offers the opportunity to engage critically with modern political philosophy alongside their study of the recent history of the subject; it is shared and co-taught with the Department of Politics and International Studies.

Part II students are also offered a Special and a Specified Subject in this area. Currently available as a Special Subjet is: 'Locke's Politics, 1660-1710', taught by Dr Mark Goldie.  And as a Specified Subject: 'The Politics of Knowledge from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment', taught by Dr Richard Serjeantson and Mr Scott Mandelbrote. In addition, two Specified Subjects are offered by the Classics Faculty, entitled 'Ancient Greek Democracy - and its Legacies', and 'Knowledge, Wealth and Power in the Roman Empire'.

Web Officer : Professor John Robertson