Profile

Biography

Jon Parkin has a BA in Modern History from the University of Oxford (1991) and a PhD in Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge (1995). Before joining the Department in 1999 Jon was Centenary Research Fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge (1995-8) and British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellow at King's College, London (1998-9). Jon's research interests include the history of political philosophy; seventeenth century political thought; and, the reading and reception of political ideas. He teaches the History of Political Thought, Princes, Republics and Utopias, and Aspects of Political Theory at the undergraduate level and Approaches to the History of Political Theory and Thomas Hobbes in Context at the masters level. Jon convenes the MAs in Political Philosophy and is a member of the Morrell Centre for Toleration and the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. Jon is the author of (amongst others) Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England (1999), an edition of Richard Cumberland’s Treatise of the Laws of Nature (2005), and a monograph on the reception of Thomas Hobbes in England, Taming the Leviathan (2007).

Departmental roles

• Chair of Board of Studies

Research

Overview

Jon is currently editing (with Tim Stanton) a collection titled Natural Law and Toleration in Early Enlightenment Europe, to be published in 2010. Longer term projects include an edited collection of essays on the issue of self-censorship, a monograph on the political and philosophical implications of different methodological approaches to the history of political ideas, and a book-length study of seventeenth century latitudinarianism.

Supervision

Dr Parkin would be interested in supervising research students on the following topics:

• Renaissance and early-modern political philosophy
• Reading and reception of political thought (any period)
• Methodological approaches to the history of ideas
• The politics and theology of seventeenth century Anglicanism
• Literature and political theory in early-modern England
• Self-censorship

Dr Parkin's current research students are:

• Marko Simendic who works on representation and personation in Hobbes, joint with Tim Stanton.
• Medhat Khattar who works on R.G.Collingwood and the theology of liberalism, joint with Tim Stanton. (Khattar's dissertation (PDF , 270kb))

Publications

Selected publications

• 2010. 'Locke and Hobbes' in S-J Savonius, P. Schuurman, J.C. Walmsley (eds.) The Continuum Companion to Locke (London: Continuum).
• 2008. 'Toleration, Past and Present' (with Tim Stanton), British Academy Review 11, pp. 12-14.
• 2007. Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 2007. ‘The reception of Hobbes’s Leviathan’ in P. Springborg, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 441-459.
• 2005. R. Cumberland, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, ed. J. Parkin. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
• 2003. ‘Reading Hobbes in Seventeenth Century Europe’, in T.J. Hochstrasser, T.J. and P. Schröder, eds., Early Modern Natural Law Theories: Contexts and Strategies in the Early Enlightenment, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 31-52.
• 2002. ‘Probability, Punishments and Property’: Richard Cumberland’s Sceptical Science of Sovereignty’, in I. Hunter and D. Saunders, eds., Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty, Basingstoke: 76-90
• 1999. Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England: Richard Cumberland's De legibus naturae. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.

External activities

Memberships

• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Jon Parkin reviews typescripts and books for publishers including Cambridge University Press and Macmillan. He is external examiner for the Politics and International Studies Programmes at the University of Hull.

Editorial duties

• Reviewer, Historical Journal
• Reviewer, Political Studies
• Reviewer, History of Political Thought
• Reviewer, Intellectual History Review

Teaching

Undergraduate

• History of Political Thought
• Princes, Republics and Utopias
• Aspects of Political Theory

Postgraduate

• Approaches to the History of Political Theory
• Thomas Hobbes in Context