Jonathan Clark
Religion, political thought, literary culture, historiography and politics in Britain from 1660–1832.
Research Profile:
Jonathan Clark (Ph.D. Cambridge) formed his views as a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge; a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; and a Visiting Professor at the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago. He devised the continuum of British history 1660-1832, from the Restoration of the monarchy to the Reform Act, and explores its commonalities and conflicts primarily in what he has argued are the interlocking fields of politics, religion and political thought. This involves research on the American and French Revolutions, on which he has written. Linking the arenas of British, American and French history, he is finishing a monograph on the social and political thought of Thomas Paine. He continues to write on secularization theory, and is at work on the first ever book on the Enlightenment.
Recent Publications:
- (ed.), A World By Itself: A History of the British Isles (London: Heinemann, 2010)
- ‘The Enlightenment: catégories, traductions, et objets sociaux’, in Les Lumières dans leur siècle, special edition of lumières, no. 17-18 (2011), pp. 19-39, eds. Didier Masseau and Gérard Laudin
- ‘Secularization and Modernization: the Failure of a “Grand Narrative”’, Historical Journal, 55 (2012), pp. 161-94
Teaching Profile:
Professor Clark teaches at all levels from classes for incoming undergraduates to seminars for graduate students. His ideal teaching technique is the Socratic dialogue as practiced at Cambridge University, of which he is a graduate.
Recent Courses:
- HIST 112: Introduction to British History
- HIST 545: British History, 1660-1832
- HIST 555: Aspects of British Political Thought
- HIST 558: Religion in Britain Since the Reformation: A Survey
- HIST 805: The Nature of History
- HIST 830: Colloquium in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Britain
- HIST 930: Seminar in British History
