DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): Comparative Political Theory, Chinese Political Thought, History of Political Thought, Gender.

Program Area(s): Political Theory

Regional Specialization(s): Asia

Biography

Loubna El Amine teaches political theory, with a particular focus on early Chinese political thought. Her first book, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation, was published in 2015 by Princeton University Press. She is currently working on a second book, tentatively titled Beyond Freedom and Slavery: Status and Membership in the Ancient Confucian Political Community. She holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University and a BA in Political Studies from the American University of Beirut.

Selected Publications

• “Women, rituals, and the domestic-political distinction in the Confucian Classics,” Political Theory 52: 1 (February 2024), pp.90-119.
• “The nation-state 1648-2148,” Political Theory 51:1 (February 2023) (50th anniversary special issue), pp.65-73.
• “The family-state analogy in the Mengzi,” Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Justin Tiwald (forthcoming).
• (With Kevin Mazur) “Thinking about groups in political science: A case for bringing the meso level back in,” Political Science Quarterly 137:2 (Summer 2022), pp.331-355.
• "Political Liberalism, Western History, and the Conjectural Non-West," Political Theory 49:2 (February 2021), 190-214.
• "On the Liberatory Potential of the Past: The Case of Non-Feudal China," Journal of World Philosophies 4:1 (June 2019). 
• “Beyond East and West: A reorientation of political theory through the prism of modernity,” Perspectives on Politics 14:1 (March 2016).

Awards

• Henry Luce Foundation/American Council for Learned Societies Program in China Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, September 2017-August 2018.
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, September 2017-August 2018.