Nicholas Rengger
Professor
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 (1988-1996), University of Wales, Aberystwyth (1986-1988) and the University of Strathclyde (1984-6) and has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics (1992), University of Southern California (1995-6), the European University Institute (2003) and the Centre for Theology and Philosophy at the University Of Nottingham (2010). 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 1
IR5401 International Political Theory Core
IR4541 Dealing in Darkness: An Anatomy of Realism in International Thought
Semester 2
SS5102 Philosophy and Methodology of the social sciences
IR 5403 Political Philosophy and World Order
Ir 3034 Political Theory of Peace and War
occasional lectures at sub honours level in International Relations (1000 and 2000 modules) and also in Ancient Philosophy (on Plato's Political Philosophy)
Research
With a background in political philosophy and intellectual history his scholarly and teaching interests now range across International Relations, Politics, Theology, Philosophy, 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 Centre's/Institutues around the University:
- the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies
- LOGOS: The centre for the Study of Ancient Systems of Knowledge in the School of Classics
- 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:
- First, a book developing ideas contained in the final parts of both Just War and INternational Order and Dealing in Darkness, exploring the growing dominance of ways of life understood to be 'unreasonable' in a profound and damaging sense and how we might respond to this in terms of notions of what a 'reasonable' life might be and how we might enact such in a globalizing (and unreasonable) age. It will, inter alia, discuss ideas of thinkers who all, from different perspectives, criticize the unreasonableness of modern life, as well as themes relevant to the idea of 'living reasonably' and will, inevitably, cut across usual disciplinary boundaries and will link philosophical, Theological and international/political interests. He will be developing this both generally and in connection with his role as CCEIA Global Ethics Fellow, during which he will be writing a series of essays focussing on possibilities and problems of global ethical sensibilities across different issue areas, and in particular on ideas about, and possibilities for, serious dialogue on contested global issues between different world views, cultures and belief systems.
- Second, a short book on how we should think about philosophical issues connected to, and arising from, the human and social sciences.
- Third, a series of essays exploring aspects of the 'practical turn' in both International political theory and ethics and IR theory in general, with a view eventually to collecting them together into a volume
- Finally, a series of essays examining linkages and overlaps between IR and philosophical and political theology.
Books
Published
[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
2012/2103 ' The Constant Individualist: George Kateb and International Political Theory' in the Journal of International Political Theory.
2012 'Eric Voegelin and the unity of Mankind', International Affairs,
2012 'A Global Ethic: A Reimagining, Reimagined', Ethics and International Affairs.
2012 'On Theology and International Relations: World Politics Beyond the Empty Sky' in International Relations
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
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
IPT M.Litt Convenor
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
The Classical 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.
The Telos Seminar, L'Aquila, Italy, September 2012
Forthcoming
Dealing in Darkness: The Anti-Pelagian Imagination in political theory and international relations (being prepared for Routledge)
Just War and International order: The Uncivil Condition in World Politics.(Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Current Research Students
Primary Supervisor for:
Antonio di Biagio
Hans Lindenlaub
John-Herman Walk
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
European Intellectual history
Political and Philosophical Theology
Comparative political tthory and philosophy
Philosophy of the Human Sciences
Aesthetics
The thought of Michael Oakeshott, George Santayana and Eric Voegelin.
