Professor Mónica Brito Vieira

Profile

Biography

Mónica Brito Vieira specializes in the history of political thought and in normative political theory. She received her MA (2001) and PhD (2005) degrees in the history of political thought from the University of Cambridge. Between 2005 and 2008 she held a Junior Research Fellowship at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, where she now holds a permanent Visiting Fellowship. Before moving to York, in 2012, she served as a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL).

Areas of Interest

Her overlapping areas of interest are the history of political thought, contemporary political theory and intellectual history. In recent years, her research has focused on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and on the history and theory of political representation. She is the author of The Elements of Representation in Hobbes: Aesthetics, Theatre, Law and Theology in the Construction of Hobbes’s Theory of the State (2009) and the co-author (with David Runciman) of Representation (2008). Amongst the topics she has covered in her writings and teaching are the history and theory of democracy, theories of the state and political authority, natural law, theories of justice, theories of rights, constitutionalism, canon formation, and approaches and methods in social and political theory. In addition to book chapters, she has published articles in several international scholarly journals, such as the Journal of the History of Ideas, History of Political Thought, and the Journal of Classical Sociology.

On 6 December 2016, Mónica spoke in the Portuguese Parliament about the effects of the crisis on the welfare preferences of the precariat and the dilemmas it poses to the Portuguese democracy.

Participated on 8 December 2016, on National TV - RTP 3 - speaking about Brexit in one of their main extended news programmes - 360º (please note the programme is in Portuguese).