# Quentin Skinner Lecture

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) reimagined how we could do politics. It redefined many of the ideas that continue to shape modern politics: representation, sovereignty, the state. But in Leviathan these ideas have a strange and puzzling power. David explores what Hobbes was trying to achieve and h…

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) reimagined how we could do politics. It redefined many of the ideas that continue to shape modern politics: representation, sovereignty, the state. But in Leviathan these ideas have a strange and puzzling power. David explores what Hobbes was trying to achieve and h…

The Quentin Skinner Fellow for 2017-18, Dr Avi Lifschitz, will give the annual lecture and participate in the related symposium. How should readers approach the philosophical writings of an author who was not only a political thinker – but also, and primarily, a major political agent? Are written…

Dr Sophie Smith (University of Oxford) is the Quentin Skinner Fellow 2016-17. She will be giving the annual Quentin Skinner lecture and participating in the symposium. What are we trying to understand when we study politics - and to what end? These are often thought of as relatively new questions …