New Research in Illiberalism:
Theoretical Perspectives
Thursday, December 1, 2022
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
This event is on the record and open to the public.
New Research in Illiberalism is a series hosted by the Illiberalism Studies Program featuring authors of chapters published in the Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism (2021) eds. András Sajó, Renáta Uitz, Stephen Holmes. The speakers will present their research based on their chapter in the handbook with a group discussion afterwards.

This seminar discusses some of the conceptual foundations of illiberalism: the historical evolution of "liberalism" and "illiberalism," left-wing critiques of liberalism, and overlap between conservatism and illiberalism. How does illiberalism as a label relate to the characteristics of an individual or of a political regime? What are the perceived flaws of liberalism and how does the political left address these flaws? What are the links between conservatism and illiberalism and to what extent can illiberalism be described as a form of conservatism?
Speakers
Helena Rosenblatt is a professor of History, Political Science and French at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her specialty is eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European intellectual history. She is the author, among many books, of The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (2018), and co-editor, with Raf Geenens, of French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day (2012). She is currently working on a book provisionally entitled Napoleon’s Nemesis: Madame de Staël and the origins of Liberalism. Rosenblatt earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Columbia University.
Michael C. Behrent is Associate Professor of history at Appalachian State University. He earned his doctorate at New York University, where he examined the ways in which nineteenth-century republican and socialist thinkers drew upon religious discourse to speculate about how a post-corporate and post-revolutionary society might foster robust social bonds. He is currently working on a project that examines the role played by Michel Foucault in ushering in the "liberal turn" in French thought during the 1970s. He also writes about American politics and political thought for several French publications, including La Vie des Idées, an online journal. His writes a blog in French on American politics (hosted by the French magazine Alternatives Internationales) and another blog in English on French politics.
Andy Hamilton teaches Philosophy, and also History and Aesthetics of Jazz, at Durham University, UK. He specializes in aesthetics, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, J.S. Mill and Wittgenstein. At the moment he is completing a monograph on Art and Entertainment: A Philosophical Enquiry (Routledge, 2022) and a second edition of his Aesthetics and Music (Bloomsbury, 2022). Andy is a long-standing contributor to The Wire, Jazz Journal and International Piano magazines, interviewing and writing features on jazz and classical musicians and composers such as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Elliott Carter, Kaija Saariaho and Christian Wolff. He is also a jazz pianist, and has adopted the persona Conservative Britartist Hamilton, whose activities satirize the contemporary artworld.
Moderator
Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director of the Central Asia Program; Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director of PONARS Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University. She works on political, social, and cultural changes in the post-Soviet space. Marlene's research explores the transformations of nationalist and conservative ideologies in Russia, nationhood construction in Central Asia, as well as the development of Russia's Arctic regions.
Illiberalism Studies Program
Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW | Suite 412 | Washington, DC | 20052