Dr Chloe Kattar

Research Interests 

My research interests lie at the intersection of world history and the history of political thought. I write about how conservative thinkers from the non-Western world have dealt with concepts such as democracy, constitutionalism, freedom of belief and minority rights, as well as with ideas of international order and civilization. I pay particular attention to the migration and transformation across frontiers of debates in right-wing milieus. 

My previous work examined the rise of Christian conservatism during the Lebanese Civil War by looking at the activities and writings of right-wing Christian intellectuals. The thesis combined intellectual, social and diplomatic histories to follow the movement of intellectuals within and outside a divided territory. By looking at their texts in a transnational perspective, I argued that the rise of conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s must be understood as a global phenomenon rather than one confined to the West. My thesis is a three-time recipient of the Faculty’s Lightfoot Prize for ecclesiastical history. My upcoming research investigates the networks of right-wing internationalism, understood as a transnational alliance of conservative activists and writers who worked to counter-act what they perceived as the all-encompassing threat of leftism and radicalism in the latter part of the 20th century. By looking at these writings and encounters, I hope to uncover how the Middle East and the Global South have contributed to the revival of conservatism in the same years and reveal therefore the complexity behind such concepts. 

Teaching

Class Leader Part IA, History and Politics Tripos, 'Evidence and Argument'. 

Historical Argument and Practice (HAP): Nation and Race. 

Supervisior Part I, Paper 23, 'World History since 1914'.  

Supervisor Part II, History and Politics BA, ‘Theory and Practice in History and Politics’. 

Supervisor Part IIA POL 4, Human, Social and Political Science Tripos, ‘Comparative Politics’ – The Middle East: Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

 Supervisor Part IIB POL 12, Politics and International Relations, ‘The Politics of the Middle East’.