Antoinette Saxer

Research

Title of Research:

The Radical Legacy of Hans Baron – Civic Humanism between Weimar Germany and Renaissance Florence

Brief overview of research topic:

My research is part of Professor Stanton’s Leverhulme-funded project ‘Rethinking Civil Society: History, Theory, Critique’. The thesis, a contribution to the history of political ideas, reappraises the concept of Bürgerhumanismus (civic humanism) – coined by the rising Jewish historian of ideas Hans Baron (1900-1988) in Weimar Germany.

Keywords: Aristotelian practical philosophy, Renaissance historiography, Weimar politics, Jewish thought.

About

Antoinette Saxer is a PhD candidate in Politics at the University of York (UK). 

I am an intellectual historian interested in the history of political ideas and languages with a focus on Renaissance thought (especially in Italy and France). My wider research interests include the reception and (post)modern interpretation of the Renaissance(s). I am also interested in humanism, republicanism, and Jewish thought.

I was born in Bern, Switzerland and have grown up in Neuchâtel and later in Zurich. I have studied jurisprudence, medieval and modern history, and religious studies at the Universities of Zurich, Heidelberg and QMUL London. I hold a dual degree of Magistra Artium in history and religious studies from the University of Heidelberg where I concluded my studies with a thesis on ‘The Concept of Oriental Despotism in French Political Thought from Bodin to Montesquieu‘. 

Until August 2022 I am completing my doctoral dissertation on ‘The Radical Legacy of Hans Baron – Civic Humanism between Weimar Germany and Renaissance Florence’. My doctoral research is part of the Leverhulme-funded project ‘Rethinking Civil Society: History, Theory, Critique’ at the University of York (UK), directed by Professor Tim Stanton.