Professor Timothy Stanton

Profile

Biography

I studied politics, economics, and economic history as an undergraduate before completing an MA in Political Philosophy and a PhD in History.  My main research interests are in the history of political thought, but I have subsidiary interests in the relationship between politics and religion, natural law and international law, political theology and the history of Christianity, and history and historiography. I have written about (amongst others) Hobbes, Locke, Weber, Schmitt, Kelsen, Collingwood, Dunn and Skinner, plus assorted Pre-Reformation and Protestant theologians.

I have been variously Beinecke Fellow at Yale University, Balzan-Skinner Fellow and Lecturer in Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge, a Visiting Fellow at the Herzog-August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel and a Senior Research Fellow at the Lichtenberg Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. My research has been funded by the ESRC, the AHRC, the British Academy, the Balzan Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust. From 2017-2023 I was a Leverhulme Trust Research Leader ‘Rethinking Civil Society’. I edited the journal Locke Studies from 2013-2017 and I am one of the editors of the Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke. I am a Life Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Research

Overview

My research focuses on (i) the thought of John Locke and its relation to (ii) the thought of Thomas Hobbes, and (iii) broader European debates about toleration and the nature of (iv) liberalism. I am currently completing a critical edition of a hitherto unpublished work by Locke on the nature of churches in two volumes for the Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke. My recent work on Hobbes and Locke reflects some of these interests, and gestures towards a wider interest still in the place and standing of authority within modern politics, to find expression in a monograph on Locke's political thought and what it can do to help us to understand the challenges of modern politics.

I am also principal investigator on the five-year project 'Rethinking Civil Society: History, Theory, Critique', supported by the Leverhulme Trust as part of a Research Leadership Award.

Areas of interest

I have published on a wide range of topics in the history of political thought in journals including Political Studies, Political Theory, History of Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas. the Historical Journal, History of European Ideas, the European Journal of Political Theory, Hobbes Studies, and Locke Studies. Other work has been published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Presses Universitaires de France. With Professor Jon Parkin (St. Hugh’s, Oxford), I am the editor of Natural Law and Toleration in the Early Enlightenment (Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2013). I am currently completing a critical edition of the last major unpublished piece of writing by the English philosopher John Locke, to be published in the Clarendon Edition of his works as The Nature of Churches.

If you are a student and you are interested in any of my publications but can’t get hold of a free copy either electronically or in your current institution’s library, please email me and I would be glad to provide you with one where it is available.

Research Funding

I have been the Principal Investigator on a number of externally-funded research projects to the value of £1.25m and a member of several international research networks, including Freedom and the Construction of Europe and Popular Sovereignty: the Will of the People in Historical Perspective.

Supervision

I have supervised and mentored 10 postdoctoral fellows at the University of York and the Lichtenberg Kolleg. I have supervised/co-supervised 10 PhD projects to completion, on topics including Hobbes and Kant, Cicero and the nature of personhood, the development of Locke's political and religious thought, the role of conflict in modern political theory, conceptions of violence in Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin and Georges Sorel, R.G. Collingwood, history and atonement, Hans Baron’s Burgerhumanismus and Toleration and Apocalyptic community in modern Mexico. I have examined lots of PhD theses at the University of York and has been an external examiner of 2 PhD projects at the European University Institute, Florence. If you’re keen to pursue a PhD in any area where your interests overlap with mine, do please get in touch.

I am is currently supervising two PhD students and one visiting student from Peking University with my colleague Tim Stuart-Buttle.

• Qingyang Liu 
• Jack Crosswaite
• Jianshu Wang

Teaching

Undergraduate

I have taught a wide range of undergraduate and Masters’ modules in political theory and the history of political thought, including interdisciplinary modules with other social sciences and humanities disciplines. I currently teach;

Undergraduate

• Introduction to Political Theory
• Things Fall Apart: Political Thought in Times of Crisis

Postgraduate

• Making the Contemporary World
• Approaches to Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Other teaching

I have been nominated for a number of teaching awards including Teacher of the Year (2015), Supervisor of the Year (2007), and Inspirational Lecturer (2013, 2015, 2025).

I am a member of the Professional Association of Specific Learning Difference Specialists in Higher Education (PASSHE).

External activities

Memberships

I have presented my research to audiences at the Thomas Jefferson Center, Monticello, VA; the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel; the European University Institute, Florence; the British Academy; the Institute for Historical Research; Dr. Williams’ Library; King’s India Institute; Hull School of Art and Design, the Ferens Gallery, Hull, and at many leading universities including Columbia, Helsinki, Taartu, Lund, Göttingen, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Durham, Exeter, and Sussex.

I have also appeared on BBC Radio 4. ‘In Our Time’, discussing “Sovereignty”. 

I regularly reviews books and articles for publishers, academic journals, and newspapers, including the Times Literary Supplement, in the UK, Europe, the United States, and Japan, on topics in political theory and intellectual history.

I have been an external assessor for Professorial appointments at universities in the United States and the UK, including the London School of Economics and the University of Exeter. I have also been an external assessor for the German Academic Exchange Service’s Postdoctoral funding scheme, the University of Cambridge’s Junior Research Fellowships scheme, and the ESRC’s Early Career Fellowship’s scheme. I was the External examiner of the M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge for three years.