Benjamin Tan

I am the A. H. Lloyd Junior Research Fellow in the History of Political Thought at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge.

My teaching and research lie at the intersection of political theory and modern intellectual history. I have particular research interests in the entanglements of democratic thought and empire, especially in Anglo-American political thought since the nineteenth century; contests over the meaning of race; and the history of imperial citizenship and migration. My current book project examines the relationship between imperial power and early ideas about social democracy in Britain.

At Cambridge, I co-convene of the Political Thought and Intellectual History research seminar and am interested in hearing from other early-career researchers who wish to present works-in-progress. I teach undergraduate papers in political theory, the history of political thought since c. 1890, and methods in history and politics; I also run an MPhil class on empire and democracy in modern political thought.

I recently completed a PhD at Cambridge, which was supervised by Duncan Bell and funded by the Cambridge Gates Trust. Prior to this, I read for an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at Cambridge (2020) and a BA in History and Politics at the University of Oxford (2019).

If you have enquiries or questions, I would be very happy to hear from you via email . You can also find me on Bluesky and on my university page.