James Ingram

Research
Courses
Selected Publications
Selected Presentations

Research

James Ingram's main interests are in modern, especially contemporary, continental political theory, from Kant and Rousseau via Marx to Critical Theory, deconstruction, and post-Marxism.

He has recently completed a manuscript that tries to rethink the idea of cosmopolitanism through a critical examination of the failures of top-down universalisms. His current research extends this work by exploring particular areas of especially transnational politics, including human rights, culture, democracy, and representation.

He has also worked extensively as a translator from French (Jacques Derrida, Étienne Balibar, Jacques Rancière) as well as German (Axel Honneth, Reinhart Koselleck, Hauke Brunkhorst).

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Courses

Undergraduate

• 2OO6 – Political Theory (second half)
• 3VV3 – Democratic Theory
• 4HH3 – Critical Theory

Graduate

• Political Thought (Critical Theories of Freedom)
• The Autonomy of Politics
• Cosmopolitanism and Its Critics

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Selected Publications

• “Rights, Norms, and Politics: The Case of German Citizenship Reform,” Social Research 77, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 353-82 (withTriadafilos Triadafilopoulos).

• “What Is a ‘Right to Have Rights’? Three Images of the Politics of Human Rights,” American Political Science Review102, no. 4 (Nov. 2008): 401-16.

• “Praktische Idee oder vernünftiger Glaube? Aporien moralisch-politischen Fortschritts und kommende Demokratie” (tr. Markus Wolf), in Politische Philosophie und Dekonstruktion. Beiträge zur politischen Theorie im Anschluss an Jacques Derrida, ed. Andreas Niederberger and Markus Wolf (Berlin: transcript, 2007).

• “‘Aufklärung’ – Ist es links?,” Polar: Politik/Theorie/Alltag #3 (Fall 2007).

• “The Politics of Claude Lefort’s Political: Between Liberalism and Radical Democracy,” Thesis Eleven 87 (Nov. 2006).

• “The Subject of the Politics of Recognition: Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière,” in Socialité et reconnaissance. Grammaires de l´humain, ed. Georg Bertram, Robin Celikates, Christoph Laudou, and David Lauer (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2006).

• “Can Universalism Still Be Radical? Alain Badiou’s Politics of Truth,” Constellations 12, no. 4 (Dec. 2005).

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Selected Presentations

• "La pensée de Claude Lefort dans le context du retour contemporain au politique,” Lausanne Switzerland, "Claude Lefort, l'énigme du politique," September 2011

• "Governmentality as Critique of Political Economy,” Western Political Science Association, San Antonio, April 2011.

• “Who Is ‘The People’? On the Impossible Subject of Democracy,” Faculty of Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 2010.

• “‘The People’ as Principle of Representation and Contestation,” American Political Science Association, Washington DC, August 2010.

• “Learning from Perpetual Peace: Kant and the Dilemmas of Cosmopolitanism,” J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt, May 2010.

• “Cosmopolitanism After Its Critique: Why Still Universalism?,” York University, Toronto, “Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship,” April 2010.

• “Politics and Its Conditions,” Western Political Science Association, San Francisco, April 2010.

• “When Can Cosmopolitans Support Patriotism?,” Dartmouth College, Hanover NH, “The Ethics of Patriotism,” November 2009.

• “On the Supposed Tension between Freedom and Equality: Étienne Balibar’s Égaliberté” International Philosophy Colloquium,“Conditions of Freedom,” Evian France, July 2009.

• Between Anthropology and Universal History: Kant on Difference and Progress,” Western Political Science Association, Vancouver, March 2009.

• “The Specificity of Cultural Claims in Politics,” Western Political Science Association, Vancouver, March 2009.

• “How (and how not) to Defend Radical Democracy,” Association for Political Theory, Wesleyan College CT, October 2008.

• “Culture after Multiculturalism” workshop organized for the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 2008.

• “On the Uses and Disadvantages of Culture for Politics,” International Philosophy Colloquium, “Second Nature,” Evian France, July 2008.

• “The Unstable ‘People’ of Democratic Practice,” Canadian Political Science Association, Vancouver, June 2008.

• “Democracy as Norm, Democracy as Process,” Western Political Science Association, San Diego, March 2008.

• “Radical Democracy, Transformative Politics, and Negative Universalism,” Critical Theory Roundtable, St. Louis, October 2007.

• “The Best of Intentions: Cosmopolitical Lessons from Kant’s Perpetual Peace,” Association for Political Theory, London ON, October 2007.

• “Between Ethics and Power: Habermasian Cosmopolitics and Kantian Critique,” Canadian Political Science Association, York University, Toronto, June 2006.

• “Rights, Law, Sovereignty: On Some Fetishes of the Current Global Disorder,” Columbia University, “Sovereignty and Its Discontents,” New York, December 2005.

• “Three Images of the Politics of Human Rights,” Irmgard Coninx Foundation Roundtable on Transnationality, “Reframing Human Rights,” Social Science Research Center, Berlin, October 2005.

• “Normative Progress,” International Philosophy Colloquium, “Normativity,” Evian, July 2005.

• “The Ambivalence of Lefort’s Political: Between Radical Democracy and Posthistoire,” Society for Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, “Claude Lefort and the Nature of the Political,” London ON, May 2005.

• “Normativity and Politics in Cosmopolitical Criticism,” American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2004.

• “Politics against the Social: Recognition in Arendt and Rancière,” International Philosophy Colloquium, “Recognition and Sociality,” Evian, July 2004.

• “Toward a Normative Concept of the Political: Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière,” Conference on Philosophy and Social Science, Prague, May 2004.

• “Pierre Bourdieu and the Ethos of Critical Social Science,” Southern Political Science Association, Savannah GA, November 2002.

   

• “Cultural Relativism, Human Rights, Democracy,” Masterclass on the Future of Democracy, Konstanz Germany, September 2002.

• “What is Cosmopolitical Criticism?,” Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto, May 2002.

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