William Selinger, an assistant professor of Constitutional studies in the Department of Classics and Letters, has received the honor of being named the 2024 Quentin Skinner Lecturer in Intellectual History at Cambridge University. This is an extremely high honor in the field of Early Modern Studies, and Selinger’s tenure as lecturer will be during Cambridge Easter Term 2024. This fellowship has been in place since 2009 and provides a space for the selected Quentin Skinner Fellow to give a lecture on a subject of their choosing in the broad field of intellectual history since 1500, including the history of political thought, and organize a half-day colloquium to follow the lecture. Selinger has previously been a lecturer in European History (1700-1850) at University College London. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago and his doctoral degree from Harvard University. Selinger’s research focuses on the modern history of representative democracy. He has published an award-winning book titled Parliamentarism: From Burke to Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) and has also been published in Modern Intellectual History, Review of Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, History of European Ideas, Constellations, Contemporary Political Theory, Tocqueville Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and several edited volumes. Selinger’s next book is under contract with Princeton University Press and is a comprehensive study of Montesquieu’s life and thought. This will serve as the basis for his Skinner Lecture.
