Nicholas Rengger
Professor, Head of School
Room: 208
Office Hours
Tel: 2941
Email: njr3
st-andrews.ac.uk
About
Nicholas Rengger is Professor of Political Theory and International Relations at St Andrews. He previously taught at Bristol University, University of Wales, Aberystwyth and the University of Strathclyde and has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics, University of Southern California, and the Centre for Theology and Philosophy at the University Of Nottingham. He is also currrently (2011-2014) a Carnegie Council Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York.
Teaching
Semester 2
IR 3011 Ethics of World Politics
occasional lectures at sub honours level in International Relations (1000 and 2000 modules) and also in Ancient Philosophy (on Plato's Political Philosophy)
During the Calendar year 2013, Professor Rengger will be acting Head of School, so his teaching will be heavily limited.
Research
With a background in general intellectual history, political philosophy, and international theory, his scholarly and teaching interests now range across International Relations, Politics, Theology, Philosophy, Social Thought and History and he tries to work across and between disciplines as well as within them. Consequently, in addition to his position the School of IR, he is a regular member of the following Centres/Institutues around the University:
- the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies
- the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics hosted by the School of Divinity
- the Institute for Iranian Studies (on whose advisory board he sits)
- Theoria: St Andrews Critical Theory Group
Over the next few years he will be working on the following projects:
- A collection of essays exploring various different aspects of a particular intellectual sensibility in contemporary political theory, international relations scholarship, philosophy and Theology to be published under the title Dealing in Darkness: The Anti-Pelagian Imagination in Political Theory and International Relations, in 2014.
- Three interlinked essays exploring key transitional moments in our conceptions of international order. Intended then to be elaborated and published as a book.
- A large book developing arguments made in the epilogue of Just War and International Order. The focus will be on the way we might understand the possibilities and dissonances of the human condition in a 'global' - and 'unreasonable' - age. Bringing interests in philosophy, history, theology and IR together, the book will suggest why our global age is 'unresonable' and what the contours of a 'reasonable' conception of human life and association might be in this context.
Books
Published
Just War and International order: The Uncivil Condition in World Politics.(Cambridge University Press, 2013)
[Ed] Evaluating Global Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge UNiversity Press, 2011).
[Ed, with Ben Thirkell-White] Critical International Relations Theory After Twenty Five Years (Cambridge: Cambridge UNiversity Press, 2007)
[Ed, with Chris Brown and Terry Nardin] International Relations in Political Thought: Texts From the Ancient Greeks to The First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
International Relations, Political Theory and the Problem of Order: Beyond International Relations Theory (London: Routledge, 2000)
Retreat From the Modern: Humanism, Postmodernism and the Flight from Modernist Culture (London; Bowerdean, 1996).
Political Theory, Modernity and Postmodernity: Beyond Enlightenment and Critique (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
[Ed with John Baylis] Dilemmas of World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Articles
2013 'On Theology and International Relations: World Politics Beyond the Empty Sky' in International Relations
2012, 'Progress with Price?' International Theory, 4, 3
2012 'A Global Ethic and the Hybrid character of the Moral World', Ethics and International Affairs, 26, 1
2011 N Rengger 'The World Turned Upside Down? Twenty Five Years of HUman Rights and International Relations' International Affairs, 87, 4, September
2010 N Rengger 'Remember the Aeneid: Why International Theory Should Beware Greek Gifts' Interational Theory 2, 3.
2008; N Rengger, C Kennedy-Pipe; "Introduction: The State of War"; International Affairs; 84(4)
2008; N Rengger; "The Greatest Treason/ On The Subtle Temptations of Preventive War"; International Affairs; 84(4)
Book Chapters
2013 ' Realism Tamed or Liberalism Betrayed? Dystopic Liberalism and International Order' in R.Freidman et al (eds) After Liberalism (London: Palgrave)
2013 'A Wager Lost By Winning? On the 'Triumph' of the Just War Tradition' in J.C.Williams et al (ed) Just War (Washington: GeorgeTown University Press)
2012, 'Tragedy or Scepticism; Defending the Anti-Pelagian Mind in World Politics' in Toni Erskine and Richard Ned Lebow (eds) Tragedy and International Relations (London: Palgrave Macmillan)
2012, 'POlitics and International relations' in Peter Hampson et al (ed) Christianity and the Disciplines
2010 'The Just War Tradition' in Duncan Bell (ed) Ethics and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford UNiversity Press).
2009; N Rengger; "Realism's Hidden Dialogue: Leo Strauss, war and politics"; Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme; Duncan Bell (ed); Oxford University Press
2009; N Rengger; "Inter arma silent leges? Political Community, Supreme Emergency and the Rules of War"; War, Torture and Terrorism: Rethinking the Rules of International Security; A Lang, Amanda Russell Beattie (ed); Routeledge
2008 'Marxism and International Ethics' in Chris Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds) The Oxofrd Handbook of INternational Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Administration
Head of School
Research Committee
Affiliations
Britain and Ireland Association of Political Thought
Centre for the Study of Political Thought (USA)
Centre for Theology and Philosophy, UNiversity of Nottingham
British International Studies Association
International Studies Association
Editorial Positions
Currently sits on the editorial boards of the following journals:
Journal of International Political Theory
International Relations
Radical Orthodoxy
Has previously served on the boards of:
Civil Wars
International Affairs
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
Has previously edited:
The Review of International Studies (2006-2010).
Invited Talks, Lectures and Seminars
Michael Oakeshott Association conference, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 13-15 Oct 2011.
The Post Secular in International Relations, University of Sussex, 27-28 October 2011
Global Ethics Workshop, Carnegie Council for Ethics and INternational Affairs, New York, 9-12 November, 2011
Lecture to the American University in Paris, 30 November 2011
Symposium on Cultural Dialogue and International Security ' opening panellist', Chatham House, 6 December 2011
Lecture to the Bristol Colloquium on Ancients and Moderns, 7 December 2011
The Persistance of the state: Blessing or Curse? conference, Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire, 2-4 Febraury 2012.
Comsopolitanism and International Relations workshop, New Normative Orders Exellenz Cluster, University of Frankfurt and Technical Universty of Darmstadt, 2-4 March 2012
Edinburgh Doctoral; Training Centre workshop on the Philosophy of the Social Sciences and IR, 18 June 2012
BISA/ISA Convention, Edinburgh, UK, 20-22 JUne 2012
Realism: Crisis or Renewal conference, Edinburgh, June 23-24, 2012.
Telos in Europe, L'Aquila, Italy, September 7-10, 2012
CSTPV in LOndon: Constraints on Counter Terrorism, 6 November 2012
2nd Global EThics Fellows meeting, Carnegie Council for Ethics and INternational Affairs, New York, 7-11 November, 2012.
Lecture to Harvard International and Global History Seminar, Harvard University, 14 November 2012.
Keynote lecture to International Relations and the Harvest of the Middle Ages, Workshop, 8 March 2013, National UNiversity of Singapore
Seminar on Religion, Secularism and the Good society, Luxembourg, 26/7 April 2013
Cambridge POlitical Thought and Intellectual History Seminar, April 29th 2013.
Forthcoming
Dealing in Darkness: The Anti-Pelagian Imagination in political theory and international relations (being prepared for Routledge)
Current Research Students
Primary Supervisor for:
Antonio di Biagio
Hans Lindenlaub
John-Harman Valk
Secondary Supervisor for:
Andreas Aktoudiar
Francesco Belcastro
Kieran Maconachy
Joint Supervision
Iain Ferguson
PhD Supervision topics
International political theory
General political philosophy
International Relations Theory
General International Relations
European Intellectual history
Social Thought
Political and Philosophical Theology
Comparative political theory and philosophy
Philosophy of the Human Sciences
Aesthetics
The thought of Michael Oakeshott, George Santayana and Eric Voegelin.