Dr Sophie Smith

Faculty Page: https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/academic-staff/sophie-smith.html

I’m primarily a historian of political thought. My two main areas of research are early modern political ideas and the history of feminist politics and political theory. I have further research interests in Ancient Greek and Roman political thought, the relationship between philosophy and imaginative literature, and the history of environmental political thinking.

In early modernity, I’ve written on the history of European ideas of empire and the state, of citizenship and slavery, and on arguments about the nature and purpose of political philosophy itself. My interest in the project and politics of political theory extends to my work on feminism. I am currently thinking about the intersections between activist and academic approaches to feminist theory, about feminist engagements with so-called ‘mainstream’ political theory and about what these histories suggest for the future of feminist inquiry. I welcome graduate students who wish to work on any of these topics.