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About the speaker

Professor David Owen is Professor of Social & Political Philosophy within Social Sciences at the University of Southampton. He has published widely across three main research areas: Nietzsche and post-Kantian critical theory encompassing post-structuralism and the Frankfurt School; Problems of Political Community addressing issues of multiculturalism and migration; and Democratic Theory ranging from foundational to policy-relevant levels of analysis. His current research projects address the structure of agonist political theory and its relationship to perfectionism and realism, and the ethics and politics of migration and transnational citizenship.

Professor Owen has wide-ranging research interests across the history of political thought and contemporary analytic and continental social and political theory, however, his current research is focused in two areas. The first addresses the ethics and politics of migration encompassing issues such as the ethical status of borders, a state’s right to exclude, obligations due to immigrants and to emigrants, the moral and political status of refugees, and with particular reference to the development of transnational citizenship and the ways in which migration is reshaping the citizenship regimes of states. The second research topic takes up the relationship of agonism, perfectionism and realism in Nietzsche’s work and considers the disparate paths that these themes follow post-Nietzsche – realism through Max Weber, Raymond Aron, Bernard Williams; agonism through Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and contemporary agonists such as Connolly, Honig and Tully; perfectionism through Stanley Cavell and Michel Foucault. This project asks how we may put these elements back together again.

Podcast

Listen to the podcast here >>

Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture

The Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture is named in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, the founding Director of the Refugee Studies Centre. It is held each year in Michaelmas term.

Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture

The Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture is held in Trinity term. It is named after Professor Elizabeth Colson, a renowned anthropologist.

Public Seminar Series

Each term the RSC holds a series of public seminars, held on Wednesday evenings at Queen Elizabeth House. Click here for details of forthcoming seminars.

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Forthcoming events

Ukraine: Insights and Implications

Tuesday, 17 October 2023, 1pm to 2pm @ Online via Zoom

Book launch: Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp

Wednesday, 01 November 2023, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 2, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB

Who Gets Believed? A conversation with Dina Nayeri | Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture 2023

Monday, 20 November 2023, 5pm to 6.30pm @ St Anne's College, 56 Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6HS