Skip to main content

Dr Adam Woodhouse

Fellowship Type
College Position
Fellow in the History of Political Thought; Director of Studies for History and Politics
University Position
Affiliated Faculty POLIS
Department
POLIS
Degrees
PhD History, University of California, Los Angeles ; MA History of Political Thought and Intellectual history, University of London ; BA Ancient and Modern History, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
Research Interests
I come to Robinson College from the University of Chicago, where I was Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts (Co-Chair 2020/21) and Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences. My main research interests are in the history of European political thought from the late Middle Ages to the closing of the early modern period (c. 1250 to c. 1650), a phase of intellectual history whose more global impact I also scrutinize. I am currently preparing the manuscript of my first book, which examines conceptions of empire in the republican thought of the Italian Renaissance and culminates in a systematic reconstruction of Machiavelli’s theory of the imperial republic. I also have interests in the place of money and its control in debates about sovereign power. My articles have been published in the Journal of the History of Ideas and Speculum, the journal of the Medieval Academy of America. I am committed to finding ways to engage with broader, non-university audiences; to this end I have published an essay on Edward Colston, British imperial history and the Black Lives Matter movement for the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society.
Teaching Interests
History of political thought; intellectual history of early modern Europe; political theory, particularly republicanism and theories of empire
Other Interests
Cinema, art, football