Eric Brandom
Visiting Assistant Professor
Associate Managing Editor, Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains
Office: Calvin 203
Email: ebrandom@ksu.edu
I teach modern Western Civilization and World History surveys, as well as topics courses in Caribbean, European, and Ancient Roman history.
My research is in modern European intellectual history, particularly the history of political and social thought. I received my PhD from Duke University in 2012, along with a certificate in European Studies. My book project, titled Autonomy and Violence: Georges Sorel and the Problem of Liberalism, looks especially to France around 1900 to ask how older traditions of liberal and socialist thought met or failed to meet the challenges of a newly liberal and democratic polity. Sorel lead me to an interest in labor history, the history of social thought, and in a subsidiary way the histories of science and philosophy. Other research and teaching interests include the Black Atlantic, literary theory, the Enlightenment, and, of course, the search for the perfect donut.
Selected publications
Georges Sorel’s “Study on Vico”: Translation, Edition, and Introduction (co-authored with Tommaso Giordani) Radboud Studies in the Humanities, Brill. 2019.
“‘Le mot du poète, le mot primitif’: Aimé Césaire and Vico’s Civic Humanism,” in Ghaffar ed. History, Imperialism, Critique: New Essays in World Literature. Routledge, 2018.
“Violence in Translation: Georges Sorel, Liberalism, and Totalitarianism from Weimar to Woodstock.” History of Political Thought, 38:4, 2017. 733-763.
“Georges Sorel’s Diremption: Hegel, Marxism, and Anti-Dialectics.” History of European Ideas, 42:7, 2016, 937-50.
“Liberalism and Rationalism at the Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 1902-1903.” French Historical Studies. 39:4, 2016. 749-780.
“L’institution et l’esthétique: Sorel, Vico, & Croce.” Mil-neuf-cent: Revue d’histoire intellectuelle. no 32, 2014. 125-147.
Courses taught
- HIST 102 – Western Civilization: The Modern Era
- HIST 112 – World History since 1450
- HIST 301 - Games & History
- HIST 533 – Pirates, Plantations, and Empire: Caribbean History 1450-1950
- HIST 566/CLSCS 502 – History of Ancient Rome
- HIST 572 – 19th Century Europe
- HIST 573 - 20th Century Europe