Academic staff 

Professor Susan James

email: s.james@bbk.ac.uk

Susan James received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She taught for two years at the University of Connecticut before returning to Cambridge, where she held a Research Fellowship at Girton College, and then a Lectureship in the Faculty of Philosophy. She moved to Birkbeck in 2000. She has been a visiting Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, at the Institute for Advanced Study of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Susan James's overlapping areas of philosophical research are the history of seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy, political and social philosophy, and feminist philosophy. Much of her recent work on all three subjects has focused on the emotions. One of her books, Passion and Action, explores the place of emotion in the philosophy of the early-modern period, and she is completing a book about the political theory of Spinoza in which the connections between passion and politics are a central concern.She has also begun to investigate these same connections in a number of papers about current approaches to political philosophy.Her interest in philosophical discussions of the social position of women has led her in both historical and contemporary directions. She is the editor of The Political Writings of Margaret Cavendish, and the author of articles about ongoing debates within feminism.

Selected publications & podcasts

Books

The Content of Social Explanation (Cambridge University Press, 1984)
Beyond Equality and Difference, co-edited with Gisela Bock (Routledge, 1992)
Passion and Action: The Emotions in Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1997)
Visible Women: Essays in Legal Theory and Political Philosophy, co-edited with Stephanie Palmer (Hart, 2002)
The Political Writings of Margaret Cavendish (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Selected papers

'The Duty to Relieve Suffering', Ethics 93 (1982-3). Republished in C. Sunstein (ed.) Feminism and Political Theory (Chicago University Press, 1990)
'The Good Enough Citizen' in G. Bock and S. James (eds), Beyond Equality and Difference (Routledge, 1992)
'Spinoza the Stoic' in T. Sorell ed., The Rise of Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1993)
'Power and Difference: Spinoza's Conception of Freedom', The Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 4 (1996).
'The Passions in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Action' in D. Garber and M. Ayers (eds), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998, vol. I)
'Reason, Passion and the Good Life' in D. Garber and M. Ayers (eds), The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. II
'Desires, Passions and the Explanation of Action' in S. Gaukroger (ed.), The Soft Underbelly of Reason (Routledge, 1998)
'The Philosophical Innovations of Margaret Cavendish', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 7 (1999)
'Feminism in Philosophy of Mind: The Question of Personal Identity' in M. Fricker and J. Hornsby (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
'Grandeur and the Mechanical Philosophy' in J. Kraye and M. Stone (eds), Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy (Routledge, 2000)
'The Emergence of the Cartesian Mind' in T. Crane and S. Patterson (eds), The History of the Mind-Body Problem (Routledge, 2000)
'Freedom and the Imaginary' in S. James and S. Palmer (eds), Visible Women: Essays on Feminist Legal Theory and Political Philosophy (Hart, 2002)
'Feminisms' in R. Bellamy and T. Ball (eds), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought  (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
'The Passions and Political Philosophy' in A. Hatzimoysis (ed.), Philosophy and the Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
'Complicity and Slavery in The Second Sex' in E. Grosholz (ed.), The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir (Oxford University Press, 2004)
'Realising Rights as Enforceable Claims' in A. Kuper (ed.), Global Responsibilities.  Who Must Deliver on Human Rights? (Routledge, 2005)
'Furcht und Aberglaube.  Spinoza und die Politik der Affecte' in West End, vol. 1 (2005)
'Sympathy and Comparison: Two Principles of Human Nature' in M. Frasca-Spada and P. J. E. Kail (eds), Impressions of Hume (Oxford University Press, 2005)
'Althusser's Materialist Spinoza' in S. Daniels (ed.), Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy (Northwestern University Press, 2006)

Selected forthcoming work

Spinoza on Politics and Religion.  The 'Tractats Theologico Politicus' (forthcoming book).
'Spinoza on Superstition. Coming to Terms with Fear',  Proceedings of the Spinoza Society.
'Emotion and Politics', lecture delivered to the Royal Institute of Philosophy, January 2005.
'The Passions in Early-Modern Philosophy' in D. Rutherford ed., The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge University Press).
'Politics and the Progress of Sentiments' in Richard Rorty, Library of Living Philosophers (Open Court).

Podcasts

BBC In Our Time, February 2008: Discussing the Social Contract - also on the programme: Melissa Lane and Karen O'Brien
Philosophy Bites interview, December 2007: Spinoza on the Passions
When does truth matter? The Politics of Spinoza's Philosophy (part of 'Thinking with Spinoza: Politics, Philosophy & Religion', Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, 7-8 May 2009)