I am a political theorist working at the intersection of normative philosophy and intellectual history. My primary area of research is liberty/freedom and its related concepts, including oppression, domination, power, agency, citizenship and nationality.
I am the author of Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics and Humanity (Princeton UP, 2021), which was shortlisted for the ECPR Political Theory Prize, European Consortium for Political Research; shortlisted for the Gladstone Book Prize, Royal Historical Society; and named as one of Bloomberg's Best Nonfiction Books of 2021. The book has been translated into Chinese (simplified) and Persian. The Chinese edition was selected as one of the 10 recommended books of 2024 by Ifeng/凤凰网 and one of the best humanities & history books of 2024 by the Beijing News/新京报. You can read more about Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin in the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog.
My other publications include Arendt on Freedom, Liberation and Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) as well as a number of academic papers found here or via Google Scholar. I am a co-founder and Consulting Editor of Arendt Studies.
Since October 2022 I have been based in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, where I am a Lecturer in Philosophy. I was previously an Assistant Professor and AIAS-COFUND Fellow at Aarhus University (2019–22); EURIAS Junior Fellow at l’Institut d’études avancées de Paris (2018–19); Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Oxford (2012–18), where I was a member of Wolfson College; and a non-residential fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City (2008–15). I was also a visiting scholar at Columbia University (2010–11), the University of Tokyo (2012), and the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College (2017).
DPhil (Oxford), MSc (Oxford), MA (Essex), BA (Keio), FRHistS
I studied economics and intellectual history at Keio University, Tokyo; Continental political theory at the University of Essex; and analytical political theory at the University of Oxford. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2022 and won the JSPS Prize in 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Kei Hiruta - All Rights Reserved.