Neil Robertson

Neil G. Robertson is an Associate Professor in the Foundation Year, Early Modern Studies and Contemporary Studies programmes. Dr. Robertson graduated from the University of King’s College in 1985 with a BA in Political Science. He went on to take an M.A. in Classics at Dalhousie University, and in 1995 completed his PhD at Cambridge in Social and Political Science. He has held the position of Director of the Foundation Year Programme and is past Director of the Early Modern Studies Programme, which he helped to found. Dr. Robertson was the King’s College Dean of Residence in 1989-1990 and has been Chair of Faculty since 2001.

Teaching and Research Interests

• Contemporary political thought;
• Early Modern political thought;
• The shaping of Modernity in Early Modern Europe.

Current Research Projects

Currently, Dr. Robertson is researching Leo Strauss and Neoconservatism in the Bush White House, and, as well, Descartes’ contributions to the development of Modernity.

Selected Publications

• “Milbank and Modern Secularity” in W.J. Hankey and Douglas Hedley eds. Radical Orthodoxy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
• ”Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Origins of Inequality” in John Duncan ed. On Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, forthcoming).
• “George Grant: Intimations of Deprival, Intimations of Beauty” Modern Age (Winter/Spring 2004, Vol. 46, nos. 1-2) 74-83.
• Edited with David Peddle, ”Lamentation and Speculation: George Grant, James Doull and the Possiblity of Canada” Animus 7 (2002) 1-29
• “Leo Strauss’s Platonism” Animus 4 ( 2000).
• “The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought” Animus 3 (1998) 1-16.

Classes Taught

• CTMP3410.03 Studies in Contemporary Social and Political Thought I the 20th Century: Leo Strauss and his Intellectual Context.
• CTMP4410.03 Special Topics in Contemporary Social and Political Thought in the 20th Century: European Nihilism.
• EMSP2000.06X/Y Structures of the Modern Self.
• EMSP4500.06X/Y Honours Seminar in the Early Modern Studies: The Development of Aesthetic Theory in the Early Modern Period.