Felix Waldmann

Fellow, Tutor, and Director of Studies, Corpus Christi College
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My research focuses principally on political thought in early-modern Europe.

I received a double-starred First in History from Caius, with the highest starred First in both parts of the tripos, after which I was awarded a J. E. Procter Fellowship at Princeton University. I returned to Caius on a Gates Scholarship and received the Quentin Skinner Prize for best performance in the MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History. I subsequently completed a PhD at Caius. I was then elected to a four-year Research Fellowship in History at Christ's, where I was subsequently appointed to the J. H. Plumb Lectureship in History. 

I am now a Fellow, Tutor, and Director of Studies in History (IA) and History and Politics (IA, IB, II) at Corpus Christi College, in addition to serving as a bye-fellow and Director of Studies in History, History and Politics, and History and Modern Languages at St Catharine's College (II) and Hughes Hall (IA, IB, II).

I have received a number of prizes and fellowships for my research, including the Schuldam Plate (Caius), the Cambridge Historical Society Prize, a Prize Research Studentship at the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge, the David Hume Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, a Rome Award at the British School at Rome, and an Early-Career Fellowship at CRASSH (Cambridge). 

I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

I supervise Outline O4, O5, O6, and O8 (IA), T1, T2 and T9 (IB), AT4, AT5  and AT 17 (II), IHT (IA, IB), HT (II), and HP3 (II) for the single-honours and joint-degree History triposes; POL1, POL2, POL7, POL8, POL10, and POL11 for the HSPS tripos; and Paper 07 (IB) for the Philosophy tripos, in addition to dissertation supervision across these triposes.

At graduate level, I presently supervise for the MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History and the MPhil in Philosophy. I am happy to accept inquiries for PhD supervision.

 

Contact

Tags & Themes

Address

Corpus Christi College

Trumpington Street

Cambridge

CB2 1RH

Email
few23@cam.ac.uk

Publications

Under Contract

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press; Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke).

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and Other Philosophical Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press; Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume). 

David Hume, Occasional Writings and Unpublished Manuscripts (Oxford: Oxford University Press; Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume). 

(ed. with Samuel Garrett Zeitlin) Constitutionalism and Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press; Proceedings of the British Academy).

(ed. with David Armitage and Teresa Bejan) The Political Thought of John Locke: New Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Books

After Vico: Philosophy, Politics, and the Enlightenment in Naples, 1668-1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Ideas in Context, in preparation).

(ed. with Max Skjönsberg) Hume’s Essays: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025).

Further Letters of David Hume (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 2014), ix + pp. 315.

Reviews — 1. Moritz Baumstark, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 9 (2014), pp. 101–104; 2. M. A. Stewart, Eighteenth-Century Scotland, 28 (2014), pp. 19–20; 3. David Purdie, University of Edinburgh Journal, 46 (June 2014), p. 184; 4. Jenny Davidson, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 56 (2016), pp. 712–713; 5. James Harris, Times Literary Supplement (7 Nov. 2014), p. 241.

  • 1. 'Astonishing'.
  • 2. 'A remarkable first book'.
  • 3. 'A tour de force'.
  • 4. 'The entire volume is a testament to Waldmann's historical erudition'.
  • 5. 'Admirably scholarly and beautifully produced'.

A digital edition of Further Letters of David Hume is available via Electronic Enlightenment, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (e-enlightenment.com).

 

Recent Chapters

‘Political Science in the Settecento University of Naples’, in Lorenza Gianfrancesco and Neil Tarrant, eds., The Science of Naples: Making Knowledge in Italy’s Pre-Eminent City, 1500–1800 (London: University College London Press, 2024), pp. 61–80 (Link).

Recent Articles

‘James Tyrrell, John Locke, and Patriarcha non Monarcha (1681)’, Intellectual History Review (in press).

(with J. C. Walmsley) ‘John Locke, Toleration, and Samuel Parker’s A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie (1669): A New Manuscript’, Modern Intellectual History, 19 (2022), pp. 997–1032 (Link).

‘Natural Law and the Chair of Ethics in the University of Naples, 1703–1769’, Modern Intellectual History, 19  (2022), pp. 54–80 (Link).

‘Giambattista Vico, Eugene of Savoy, and Hugo Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis, 1719’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 84 (2021), pp. 243–84 (Link).

‘John Locke as a Reader of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan: A New Manuscript’, Journal of Modern History, 93 (2021), pp. 245–82 (Link), with summary in Times Literary Supplement, 18 June 2021 (Link).

‘Adam Smith on David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: An Unnoticed Fragment’, Scottish Historical Review, 100 (2021), pp. 138–50 (Link).

‘David Hume in Chicago: A Twentieth-Century Hoax’, Journal of British Studies, 59 (2020), pp. 793–820 (Link).

(with J. C. Walmsley) ‘John Locke and the Toleration of Catholics: A New Manuscript’, Historical Journal, 62 (2019), pp. 1093–1115 (Link), with summary in Times Literary Supplement, 20 September 2019 (Link).