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Dr Teresa Bejan wins inaugural early career prize

Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought hands its first 2020 Early-Career Prize to Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations. 


The Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT) has announced the winners of its inaugural Early- and Mid-Career Prizes. The prizes recognise scholars employed in Britain and Ireland who have made the greatest overall contribution to research and teaching in Political Thought at their respective career stages.

Dr Teresa Bejan (Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford) has been announced as a joint winner of the APT Early-Career Prize. In her first book, ‘Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration’ (Harvard University Press, 2017), Dr Bejan explored the theoretical notions of civility and toleration which still guide our conduct today through historical analysis. Her next book ‘First Among Equals: The Practice and Theory of Early Modern Equality’ is under contract with Harvard University Press. Bejan regularly speaks to a wider public on the urgent importance of key early modern thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke, as well as less familiar ones like Roger Williams and Mary Astell. Her TED Talk on whether civility is a sham, or her op-ed in the New York Times on ‘What Quakers can teach us about the politics of pronouns’ being are key examples.

Dr Bejan said: ‘I am hugely honoured to receive this award from the Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought. I arrived in the UK from North America five years ago, and it has been my academic and intellectual home since. To receive this recognition from colleagues here, whose work I deeply admire, means a great deal to me. I am grateful for their support.’

Established in 2008, the APT exists to represent and promote the study of all political thought found across academic disciplines, encompassing work in political science, philosophy, history, law, sociology, economics, cultural and literary studies. Its annual conference – held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, since the 1970s – has hosted some of the most significant political theorists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.