Category: Enlightenment & Modernity
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Can We Tell the Truth About Ourselves? Rousseau and the Confessions
Rousseau’s Confessions makes sincerity a problem of memory, self-justification and the reader’s judgement.
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Review: Bureaucracy and Development, Intellectual History Workshop 2026
A review of the 2026 Intellectual History Workshop on bureaucracy, development and modernity across European and Asian history.
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Rousseau: Freedom, Inequality and the Problem of Modern Society
Rousseau’s writings expose the tensions between freedom and dependence in modern society. This essay examines his critique of progress, account of inequality, general will, educational theory, gendered exclusions and contested political legacy.
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Jeremy Bentham: Utility, Reform and the Problem of Empire
Bentham’s greatest-happiness principle made law answerable to human consequences. This essay examines utility, reform, manuscript transcription and the contradictions of empire.
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Beyond the Age of Reason: Constructing the Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was not a single march of reason. This essay reconstructs its competing networks, reforms, religious arguments and later political mythologies.
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Natural Law and Natural Rights: Pufendorf, Sociability and Political Obligation
Pufendorf’s natural law joined self-preservation to sociability, duty and political authority. This essay traces the difficult path from early modern law to modern rights.