Freedom and Democracy in an Imperial Context

Freedom and Democracy in an Imperial Context: Dialogues with James Tully gathers leading thinkers from across the humanities and social sciences in a celebration of, and critical engagement with, the recent work of Canadian political philosopher James Tully. Over the past thirty years, James Tully has made key contributions to some of the most pressing questions of our time, including: interventions in the history of moral and political thought, contemporary political philosophy, democracy, citizenship, imperialism, recognition and cultural diversity. In 2008, he published Public Philosophy in a New Key, a two-volume work that promises to be one of the most influential and important statements of legal and political thought in recent history. This work, along with numerous other books and articles, is foundational to a distinctive school of political thought, influencing thinkers in fields as diverse as Anthropology, History, Indigenous Studies, Law, Philosophy and Political Science. Critically engaging with James Tully’s thought, the essays in this volume take up what is his central, and ever more pressing, question: how to enact democratic practices of freedom within and against historically sedimented and actually existing relationships of imperialism?

Robert Nichols is Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of Alberta (Canada). His areas of research include 19^th and 20^th century continental philosophy and the study of imperialism and settler-colonialism in the history of political thought.

Jakeet Singh is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics & Government at Illinois State University. His research interests include imperialism and postcolonialism, social justice, and critiques of (neo)liberal-democracy. His work has appeared in Third World Quarterly and Theory, Culture & Society.