DUNCAN BELL - Polis - University of Cambridge

Academic Career
Current Positions:
Curriculum Vitae
Duncan Bell
Last updated: September 2012
University Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Department of Politics and International
Studies, University of Cambridge
Fellow, Christ’s College, Cambridge
Previous Positions:
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge
(2008-10)
Bye-Fellow, Christ’s College, Cambridge
University Lecturer (Temporary) in International Relations, Centre of International Studies,
University of Cambridge (2005-08)
Junior Research Fellow, Christ’s College, Cambridge (2004-08)
Research Interests
History of Political Thought/Intellectual History (especially international and imperial
ideologies)
International Political Theory
International Relations Theory
Education
PhD: Faculty of History, University of Cambridge (2004)
M.Phil: Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge
BA: Department of War Studies, King’s College, London (1 st Class)
Scholarships, Awards, and Fellowship
CRASSH Early Career Fellowship, University of Cambridge (Lent 2013)
Fellow, Royal Historical Society (elected 2009)
Visiting Fellow, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University
Institute, Florence (Sept-Dec. 2008, declined)
1

Whitfield Book Prize 2007 (Royal Historical Society, presented in 2008)
Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2008-10)
Visiting Fellowship, Center for European Studies, Harvard University (2007)
Junior Research Fellowship, Christ’s College, Cambridge (elected 2003)
Fulbright Scholarship, Columbia University (2000-2001)
Arts & Humanities Research Board PhD Scholarship (1999-2002)
Foundation Scholarship, Jesus College, Cambridge (elected in 2000)
Allen, Meek & Read Scholarship, University of Cambridge, 2000 (declined)
Webb Memorial Essay Prize (Foreign Policy Centre/New Statesman & Society) (1999)
O’Dwyer Russell Memorial Prize, King’s College, London (1997)
Publications
Books
The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2007)
[Winner of the Whitfield Book Prize, Royal Historical Society (2007)]
(ed.), Memory, Trauma, and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship Between Past and
Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
Contributors: Jens Bartelson (Copenhagen); Duncan Bell (Cambridge); Roland Bleiker
(Queensland); Jenny Edkins (Aberystwyth); Stefan Feuchtwang (LSE); K. M. Fierke (St. Andrews);
Lynn Meskell (Stanford); Jeffrey Olick (Virginia); Larry Ray (Kent); Jay Winter (Yale); and Maja
Zehfuss (Manchester)
(ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth
Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
[“Ideas in Context Series,” ed. Quentin Skinner and James Tully]
Contributors: Duncan Bell (Cambridge); P. J. Cain (Sheffield Hallam); Gregory Claeys (Royal
Holloway); Anthony Howe (UEA); Karuna Mantena (Yale); Sandra Den Otter (Queen’s); Jennifer
Pitts (Princeton); Gareth Stedman Jones (Cambridge); Casper Sylvest (Southern Denmark);
Georgios Varouxakis (QMW); David Weinstein (Wake Forest)
(ed.), Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009)
Contributors: Duncan Bell (Cambridge); Joshua Foa Dienstag (UCLA); Ze’ev Emmerich
(Cambridge); Richard Ned Lebow (Dartmouth); Andrea Sangiovanni (KCL); Sean Molloy
(Edinburgh); Patricia Owens (Queen Mary); Stephen P. Turner (South Florida); Nicholas Rengger
(St. Andrews); William Scheuerman (Indiana); Roger Spegele (Monash); Vibeke Tjalve (Southern
Denmark).
● (ed.), Ethics and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
2

Contributors: Arash Abizadeh (McGill); Amy Allen (Dartmouth); Duncan Bell (Cambridge); Colin
Bird (Virginia); James Bohman (St. Louis); Simon Caney (Oxford); Anthony Carty (Aberdeen);
Andrew Gamble (Cambridge); Christopher Goto-Jones (Leiden); Virginia Held (CUNY); Kimberley
Hutchings (LSE); Mathew Humphrey (Nottingham); Duncan Ivison (Sydney); Peter Jones
(Newcastle); Margaret Kohn (Toronto); Anthony Lang (St. Andrews); Margaret Moore (Queen’s);
Patricia Owens (Queen Mary); Max Pensky (Binghampton); Nicholas Rengger (St. Andrews); Kokchor
Tan (Pennsylvania)
● (ed. with Joel Isaac), Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012)
Contributors: Steven Belletto (Lafayette); Paul Boyer (Wisconsin-Madison); Ann Douglas
(Columbia); Sharon Ghamari (Impendent Scholar); Peter Mandler (Cambridge); Dan Matlin (KCL);
Philip Mirowski (Notre Dame); Andrew Preston (Cambridge); Anders Stephanson (Columbia);
Moshik Temkin (Harvard); John Thompson (Cambridge); Odd Arne Westad (LSE)
I am currently working on (1) a volume on the political thought and intellectual history of
Anglo-American relations, 1880-1939; (2) A short monograph on liberalism and empire;
and (3) essays and book chapters on a variety of topics, mainly in the history of British and
American political thought.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals
● “Beyond the Sovereign State: Isopolitan Citizenship, Race, and Anglo-American Union,”
Political Studies (forth.)
● “John Stuart Mill on Colonies,” Political Theory, Vol. 30, no. 1 (2010), pp. 1-31
● “Republican Imperialism: J. A. Froude and the Virtue of Empire,’ History of Political
Thought, Vol. 30, no. 1 (2009), pp. 166-91
“Writing the World: Disciplinary History and Beyond,” International Affairs, Vol. 85,
no. 1 (2009), pp. 3-22
“Agonistic Democracy and the Politics of Memory,” Constellations: An International
Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, Vol. 15, no. 1 (2008), pp. 148-66
“Beware of False Prophets: Biology, Human Nature, and the Future of International
Relations Theory,” International Affairs, Vol. 82, no. 3 (2006), pp. 493-511
“From Ancient to Modern in Victorian Imperial Thought,” Historical Journal, Vol. 49,
no. 3 (2006), pp. 735-59
“International Society and Victorian Political Thought: Herbert Spencer, T. H. Green
and Henry Sidgwick,” Modern Intellectual History, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2006), pp. 207-38 [with
Casper Sylvest]
“Empire and International Relations in Victorian Political Thought: Historiographical
Essay,” Historical Journal, vol. 49, no. 1 (2006), pp. 281-98
3

“The Idea of a Patriot Queen? The Monarchy, the Constitution, and the Iconographic
Order of Greater Britain, 1860-1900,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 34,
no. 1 (2006), pp. 3-23
“Unity and Difference: John Robert Seeley and the Political Theology of International
Relations,” Review of International Studies, 31 (2005), pp. 559-79
“Dissolving Distance: Technology, Space, and Empire in British Political Thought,
1770-1900,” Journal of Modern History, 77 (2005), pp. 523-63
“Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology and National Identity,” British Journal of Sociology,
Vol. 54, no. 1 (2003), pp. 63-81
“Anarchy, Power and Death: Contemporary Political Realism as Ideology,” Journal of
Political Ideologies, Vol. 7, no. 2 (2002), pp. 221-39
“Language, Legitimacy, and the Project of Critique,” Alternatives: Global, Local,
Political, Vol. 27, no. 3 (2002), pp. 327-50
Book Chapters
“Dreaming the Future: Anglo-America as Utopia, 1880-1914” in Ella Dzelzainis and
Ruth Livesey (eds.), The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy in British Culture,
1776-1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming)
“The Project for a New Anglo Century: Race, Space, and Global Order” in Peter
Katzenstein (ed.), Anglo-America and its Discontents: Civilizational Politics Beyond East and
West (Routledge, 2012), pp. 33-56
“Making and Taking Worlds” in Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (eds.), Global
Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012, forth.)
● “To Act Otherwise: Agonistic Republicanism and Global Citizenship” in David Owen
(ed.), On Global Citizenship: James Tully in Dialogue (London: Bloomsbury Press, 2012,
forth.)
● “In Biology we Trust: Epistemology, Authority and the Elusive Self” in Daniel Jacobi
and Annette Freyberg-Inan (eds.), Man, Agency and Beyond: The Evolution of Human Nature
in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, forth.)
“Dreaming the Future: Anglo-America as Utopia, 1880-1914” in Ella Dzelzainis and
Ruth Livesey (eds.), The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy in British Culture,
1776-1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012, forthcoming)
“Empire and Imperialism” in Gregory Claeys and Gareth Stedman Jones (eds.), The
Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011), pp. 864-92
“Imagined Spaces: Nation, State, and Territory in the British Colonial Empire, 1860-
1914” in William Mulligan and Brendan Simms (eds.), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in
British History (Palgrave, 2010), pp. 197-214
“Democracy and Empire: Hobson, Hobhouse, and the Crisis of Liberalism” in Ian Hall
and Lisa Hill (ed.), British International Thought from Hobbes to Namier (Palgrave, 2009), pp.
181-207
4

“The Victorian Idea of a Global State” in Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order, pp.
159-85
“Introduction: Ethics and World Politics” in Bell (ed.), Ethics and World Politics
“Political Realism and the Limits of Ethics” in Bell (ed.), Ethics and World Politics
“Introduction: Under a Empty Sky – Realism and Political Theory” in Bell (ed.),
Political Thought and International Relations, pp. 1-25
“Introduction: Victorian Visions of Global Order” in Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of
Global Order, pp. 1-26
“Introduction: Memory, Trauma, and World Politics” in Bell (ed.), Memory, Trauma,
and World Politics, pp. 1-33
Shorter Pieces
“Introduction: Race and International Relations,” for a special section on race,
Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2013, forth.)
“5 Questions: Duncan Bell,” interview in 5 Questions: Intellectual History, ed. Morten
Haugaard Jeppesen, Frederik Stjernfelt, Mikkel Thorup (Copenhagen: Automatic/VIP
Press)
“The Dawn of Biopolitical IR,” invited symposium piece, International Studies Review
(2012) forth
“Introduction: Violence and Memory,” invited introduction to a special section,
Millennium, Vol. 38, no. 2 (2009), pp. 1-16.
“Introduction: Republicanism and Global Justice,” symposium on “Republicanism
and Global Justice,” ed. Duncan Bell, European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 9, no. 1
(2010), pp. 1-4
The following entries for the Sage Encyclopaedia of Governance, ed. Mark Bevir (London:
Sage, 2008): “Humanitarian Intervention”; “Liberal Internationalism”; “Realism and Neo-
Realism”; “Private Military Companies”; “Post 9/11”
“John Robert Seeley,” entry in the Dictionary of Liberal Thought, ed. Duncan Brack
(London: Politico’s, 2006)
“Globalisation and History: Reflections on Temporality,” International Affairs, Vol. 79,
no. 4 (2003), pp. 801-815. [Review Essay]
“Political Theory and the Functions of Intellectual History: A Reply to Emmanuel
Navon,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 29, no. 1 (2003), pp. 151-160
“International Relations: The Dawn of a Historiographical Turn?” British Journal of
Politics and International Relations, Vol. 3, no. 1 (2001), pp. 115-126. [Review Essay]
“Start the Evolution Without Us,” International Security, Vol. 26, no. 1 (2001), pp. 187-
198, (with Paul MacDonald) [Critical response to an article]
“Back to School? Ethics and International Society,” Global Society: Interdisciplinary
Journal of International Relations, Vol. 15, no. 4 (2001), pp. 405-413. [Review Essay]
General Academic Activities
5

Editorial and Refereeing
Editor, Pickering and Chatto, “Empires in Perspective” book series, 2008-2012.
Journal Editorial Boards: Cambridge Review of International Affairs (Taylor & Francis);
Global Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press); Global Change, Peace, and Security
(Routledge); Modern Intellectual History (Cambridge University Press)
Book manuscript reviews: Cambridge University Press; Columbia University Press;
Continuum; Oxford University Press; Princeton University Press; Polity; Palgrave;
Routledge; Pickering and Chatto; Continuum
Article manuscript reviews: American Political Science Review; Cambridge Review of
International Affairs; European Journal of International Relations; Global Change, Peace, and
Security; Political Studies; International Theory; International History Review; Journal of
International Political Theory; Historical Journal; Journal of British Studies; Journal of the History
of the Behavioural Sciences; Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History; Journal of Colonialism
and Colonial History; Modern Intellectual History; American Sociological Review; Review of
International Studies; International Relations; International Political Sociology; Journal of Political
Ideologies; The British Journal of Sociology; Victorian Studies; and the Victorian Review
Seminar Series Organisation
Co-founder and co-convener, Contemporary Political Thought seminar, POLIS/Faculty
of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, 2010-
Founder and convener, International Political Theory research seminar, CIS, University
of Cambridge, 2003-2010
Co-convener, joint CIS/Department of Politics research seminar, University of
Cambridge, 2006
Conferences Organisation
Organiser, conference on “Tragedy, Justice, and Power: Realism as Political Theory,”
University of Cambridge, June 2005
Organiser, conference on “Exploring Victorian International Thought,” Centre for
Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of Cambridge, July 2004
Co-organiser, conference on “Gender: The Future” (with Jude Browne and Helen
Morales), Downing College, Cambridge, March 2007.
Co-organiser, conference on “Republicanism and Global Politics” (with Quentin
Skinner), Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of
Cambridge, May 2007.
Co-organiser, conference on “Crossing Boundaries in Cold War Studies” (with Joel
Isaac), Jesus College, Cambridge, May 2007.
6

Invited Paper Presentations (Selection)
During the last few years I have presented invited papers at over twenty institutions,
including the following: Aberystwyth University (IR); University of Auckland (Politics);
University of California, Berkeley (Center for British Studies); Birkbeck College, University
of London (History); Bristol University (Politics); University of Cambridge (British
History/Geography/Political Thought and Intellectual History/International Relations);
Columbia University (International History); Cornell University (European History);
University of Edinburgh (Politics/British and Irish History); Harvard University (Center for
European Studies/History); University of Kent, Canterbury (Politics); Institute for
Historical Research, University of London (History of Political Ideas seminar); Leiden
University Centre, The Hague; London School of Economics (International Relations);
University of Oxford (Centre for Political Ideologies/History of Political Thought); Pomona
College (Political Science); University of Sydney (History); University of Sussex (History);
University of St. Andrews (International Relations); Warwick University (Politics/IR);
Victoria University, Wellington (Politics)
I have also presented papers at the following conferences (selection): the American Political
Science Association (APSA) annual convention (2005, 2010); British Academy “Lineages of
Empire” conference (2006); British International Studies annual convention (2007); European
Consortium for Political Research annual conference (2001); International Studies
Association (ISA) annual conventions (2004, 2005); Warwick University, “Cross-town Traffic:
Anglo-American Cultural Exchange since 1865” (2004); and the Western Political Science
Association (WPSA) convention (2007, 2009, 2010); “The Idea of America in Nineteenth-
Century British Culture, 1776-1914” (Institute of English Studies, University of London,
2008); “The American Way of Life: Images of the United States in Nineteenth-Century
Europe and Latin America” (UCL, 2008); the “Primacy of Foreign Policy” (University of
Glasgow, 2008); “British International Thought” (Adelaide University, 2008); “The Idea of
Tradition” (King’s College, London, 2009); “Democracy and Imperialism: The Recent Work
of James Tully” (Queen Mary, University of London, 2010); “Britain's World System, 1815-
1931: Trade, Migration and Politics” (Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris III, 2010);
“Towards a New Political History II: The Role of Ideas” (University of Southern Denmark,
2011);
Academic references available on request
7