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Headshot of Chris Barker, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Chris Barker

Brief Biography

Chris Barker teaches the history of political thought and topics in contemporary political theory. His first book, Educating Liberty: Democracy and Aristocracy in JS Mill's Political Thought, explains that Mill's version of liberty is not a defense of the abstract liberty of the "unencumbered" subject. It aims at developing mental independence, or thinking power. Barker is also the co-editor (with Robert Ingram) of a survey of theories of popular sovereignty, People Power: Popular Sovereignty from Machiavelli to Late Modernity. His most recent research focuses on John Stuart Mill's participation in the British imperial project and on the corporation as the vehicle of the imperial project. Barker also has research and teaching interests in power and the critical republican theory of freedom. Before coming to The American University in Cairo, Barker held positions at Southwestern College, Ohio University, Boston College and Harvard University.

Research Interest
  • Imperialism and corporations
  • 19th century and contemporary liberalism
  • Criminal justice/theories of punishment
  • History of subjectivity
Education
  • Bachelor of arts, University of Toronto
  • Master of arts and doctor of philosophy, Claremont Graduate University

Books

  • People Power: Popular Sovereignty from Machiavelli to Modernity, coedited with Robert Ingram (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022).
  • Educating Liberty: Democratic Freedom and Aristocracy in JS Mill’s Political Thought (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2018).

Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • “Fairly Angry: Acceptable Outrage in Grossly Non-Ideal Circumstances,” Philosophy 101, 1 (2026): 285–310.
  • “On Legitimizing and Legalizing Wars in the Transforming Public Sphere: Social Contract Theory’s Confusion about War Declarations,” Law, Culture, and the Humanities 22, 1 (2026): 148–167.
  • “Foucault’s Anarchaeology of Christian Confession: Power, Obedience, Government,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 51, 6 (2025): 927–950.
  • “The Figures, Profiles, Border Figures (figures-limites), and ‘Pure Schema’ of Foucault’s Later Lectures on Cosmopolitanism,” History of the Human Sciences 38, 3–4 (2025): 195–217.
  • “The American Action Film and the Pitkin-Arendt Tyranny of ‘The Social,’” Thesis Eleven 176, 1 (2023): 49–65.
  • “The Troubled Hedonist and Social Justice: Mill and the Epicureans on the Ataraxic Life,” Utilitas 35, 1 (2023): 54–69.
  • “How to Tell the Political Truth: Foucault on Protest Speech and Parrhesiastic Speech,” Contemporary Political Theory 18, 3 (2019): 357–378.
  • “Dostoevsky and Education through Punishment,” Review of Politics 80, 3 (2018): 463–486.
  • “Mass and Elite Politics in Mill’s Considerations on Representative Government,” History of European Ideas 41, 8 (2015): 1143–1163.
  • “Demagoguery and Mental Independence in James Fenimore Cooper’s Political Writings,” American Political Thought 4, 4 (2015): 588–611.
  • “JS Mill on 19th Century Marriage and the Common Law,” Law, Culture and the Humanities (2015): 1–21.
  • “Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon and the Fear of Death in War,” War, Literature, & the Arts (2015): 1–19.
  • “Mechanical Reproduction in the Age of High Art,” Contemporary Aesthetics 12 (2014).
  • “Freedom in Shakespeare’s English History Plays,” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 40, 2 (2013): 221–251.

Book Chapters

  • “The Use and Abuse of Xenophon for Modern Democratic Life in 19th Century England,” Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Xenophon, ed. Christopher Farrell and Dustin Gish (Leiden: Brill, 2026), 541–559.
  • “Political Theory and its Problems with Populism,” in Mapping Populism: The Student’s Handbook for Understanding and Studying Populism, ed. Majia Nadesan and Amit Ron (New York: Routledge, 2020), 227–235.
  • “Unfree, Unequal, Unempirical: Press Freedom, British India and Mill's Theory of the Public,” Freedom of Speech, 1550–1850, ed. Alex Barber and Jason Peacey (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 235–256.
  • “Beaumont and Tocqueville on the US Penitentiary System,” Anthem Companion to Tocqueville, ed. Daniel Gordon (2019), 187–205.
  • “The Certainty of Punishment and the Proportionality of Incarceration,” Rethinking Incarceration in an Era of Mass Incarceration, ed. Chris Surprenant (New York: Routledge, 2017), 69–88.