The Social Contract Research Podcast
Episodes
Simone de Beauvoir and the “Adventurer”—Navigating the Return to the Common Good, with Mary Townsend
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr. Mary Townsend finds in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, especially The Ethics of Ambiguity, an underappreciated account of the adve...
Thinking About the Age of Choice, with Sophia Rosenfeld
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Prof. Sophia Rosenfeld shows how the question of coice is central to concerns of the common good and the social contract, drawing part...
Diverse relations to alterity: from relational physics to the transindividual, with Timothy Jackson
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr. Timothy Jackson explores key questions about the social contract and the common good: who or what pre-exists “a social contract”...
Children’s Periodicals and the Common Good: The Charitable Child, with Kristine Moruzi
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr. Kristine Moruzi explores the world of eighteenth-century magazines soliciting charitable donations from children. She explores the...
The Oceans as a Commons: everyone’s, no-one’s, or a public good? with Douglas Guilfoyle
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Prof. Douglas Guilfoyle analyzes the oceans as a global commons, detailing the legal frameworks like the UN Convention on the Law of t...
Standing up to Beijing, with David McCourt
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Prof. David McCourt analyzes the recent shift towards tougher China policies in the US, Australia, and the UK, arguing it results from...
Cultures of Trust, with Thomas Simpson
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Prof. Thomas SImpson addresses questions of trust in contemporary society, including questions such as: under what circumstances is tr...
Creating the Commonwealth: Power, Projection and Religion in Hobbes’s Leviathan, with Amy Chandran
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr Amy Chandran addresses questions of power and religion on Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. The seminar is followed by a time of quest...
Of Contract and Covenant: Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Augustine on Social Agreement and Power, with Boleslaw Z. Kabala
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr Bolek Kabala addresses the relationship between notions of contract and covenant in the work of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, w...
Michel Serres, Porous Becomings, and the Social Contract Tradition, with Daniel M. Knight, Andreas Bandak and Chris Watkin
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this roundtable, Daniel M Knight, Andreas Bandak and Chris Watkin discuss Michel Serres in the light of Bandak and Knight's recent co-edited bo...
From Natural Politics to Social Contract in the History of Ideas, with Simon Kennedy
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr Simon Kennedy addresses the prehistory of ideas of the social contract. After sketching a genealogy running through Plato, Aritsotl...
States of nature as theories of normativity: Kant and his predecessors, with Macarena Marey
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Dr Macarena Marey addresses Kant's understanding of normativity in relation to the ideas of the state of nature and the social con...
Civilization and its Others: American Imaginaries, State of Nature, and Civility in Hobbes, with Stéphanie Martens
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Civilization and its Others: American Imaginaries, State of Nature, and Civility in Hobbes, with Stéphanie Martens In this seminar Dr Stéphanie Mar...
The Significance of the Individual and the Concept of the Social in the work of Carl, with Timothy Howles
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Rev'd Dr Timothy Howles addresses the question of Carl Schmitt's social thought, with a particular focus on Schmitt's earl...
Modern Capitalism as Colonialism: Rethinking CB Macpherson's Theory of Possessive Individualism, with John Holmwood
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Emeritus Professor John Holmwood addresses the question of CB Macpherson's account of possessive individualism, as it relates to n...
Spinoza and the Social Contract, with Sandra Leonie Field
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Sandra Leonie Field (Lecturer in Philosophy, Monash University) addresses the question of Spinoza's relationship to the social con...
Slavery and the Social Contract, with John Protevi
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar John Protevi (Phyllis M. Taylor Professor of French Studies, Louisiana State University) addresses the question of the relationship be...
The Rhetoric of Science and the Science of Rhetoric in Hobbes's State of Nature, with Ioannis Evrigenis
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Ioannis Evrigenis (Professor of Political Science and Professor of Classical Studies, Tufts University) addresses the question of the ...
The State of Nature and Colonialism: Empty vs Waste Land at Home and Abroad, with Barbara Arneil
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Barbara Arneil (Professor of Political Science, The University of British Columbia) addresses the fascinating question of how the noti...
Hobbes's Distinctive State of Nature, with Philip Pettit
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Philip Pettit (Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University; Distinguished Universi...
Rousseau's States of Nature, with Christopher Kelly
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Christopher Kelly (Professor in the Political Science Faculty at Boston College) addresses Rousseau's complex account of the state of ...
From Natural Equality to Frankpledge: The State of Nature, Ancient Constitutionalism, and the Rupture of the Social Contract in Eighteenth-Century Antislavery Writings, with Sarah Winter
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Sarah Winter (Professor of English and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Connecticut, and Co-Director of ...
The state of nature: the meanings and promise of a legal fiction, with Mark Somos
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Mark Somos (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow and Senior Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public ...
"Hiding God in the State of Nature", with Alan Levinovitz
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Doctor Alan Levinovitz (Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University, @AlanLevinovitz) explores how nature has taken ov...
"How to do Things With a Social Contract", with Peter Gratton
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Professor Peter Gratton (History and Political Science, Southeastern Louisiana University) explores the uses and abuses of the social ...
"Freedom and the inevitability of the market: on consumers’ sovereignty", with Jessica Whyte
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Associate Professor Jessica Whyte (Scientia Fellow in the School of Humanities and Languages (Philosophy) and the School of Law, Unive...
"States of Intoxication and the Limbic Capitalocene", with Gerald Moore
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Professor Gerald Moore (Acting Director, Centre for Culture and Ecology, Durham University, UK; Chair, Collège scientifique et indust...
Green design and the natural contract, with Andrew Lacenere
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Chris is joined by Andrew Lacenere, Founder and CEO of Albatross Designs and the brains behind a new website naturalcontract.com, the ...
Australia's Social Contract, with Wayne Swan
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation with Wayne Swan, former Treasurer of Australia (2007-2013), Deputy Prime Minister of Australia (2010-2013), and currently National Pres...
Scott Morrison's Social Contract
17 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's idea of the "social contract"? This episode compares his use of the term in publically available sp...
"Surveillance Capitalism Meets the Pandemic: Challenges to the Social Contract", with David Lyon
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Professor David Lyon (Principal Investigator of the Big Data Surveillance Project, Former Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre ...
Crime fiction and the social contract symposium
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This symposium explores the ways in which world crime fiction exemplifies and interrogates the social contract idea. The symposium featured the follow...
"Badiou, Rousseau and the Social Contract", with Justin Clemens
26 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Associate Professor Justin Clemens (Melbourne University, School of Culture and Communication) explores Alain Badiou's reading of Jean...
Rousseau's pure state of nature: A deep dive into the state of nature #2
19 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this third episode in the State of Nature series we look in detail at Rousseau's account of the "pure state of nature" from the Discourse on the Or...
"Restoring Catharine Macaulay's Enlightenment Republicanism?", with Karen Green.
12 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this seminar Associate Professor Karen Green (Melbourne University, philosophy) develops Catharine Macaulay's distinctive, anti-Hobbesian approach ...
Is getting vaccinated really part of the social contract?
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone living in Australia will have noticed that, over recent months, COVID policy has undergone a quiet revolution. With lockdowns in New South Wale...
The state of nature as social critique: A deep dive into the state of nature #1
29 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The "state of nature" is a term used in social contract theory to describe human life before the civil society inaugurated by the contract. The way we...
The state of nature: an idea that shapes us
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is the audio version of a video essay on the state of nature by Dr Christopher Watkin. You can find the video on social contract research...
Rousseau's Divided Legacy, with Peter Hallward
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a seminar by Professor Peter Hallward (Philosophy, Kingston University). Peter's paper discusses five quotations fundamental to an und...
Feminist Perspectives on Social Contract Theory, with Janice Richardson
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a seminar by Associate Professor Janice Richardson from the faculty of Law at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Janice is the a...
The New Social Contract, with Tim Wilson MP
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is a conversation with Tim Wilson, Liberal MP for Goldstein in the Australian House of Representatives, and author of the book The New So...
Michel Foucault and the Social Contract, with Stuart Elden and Mark Kelly
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Internationally renowned Foucault scholars Stuart Elden (Warwick University, UK) and Mark Kelly (Western Sydney University, Australia) discuss Michel ...