Research
Paul Stock specialises in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century intellectual history. His current research focuses on the history of the idea of Europe and on the history of spatial and geographical thought, particularly in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. His other interests include the Enlightenment; Romanticism; travel writing; nationalism; cosmopolitanism; the history of 'racial' thought; cultural encounters; and the 'spatial turn' in the humanities.
Dr Stock's current research, funded by the British Academy, investigates ideas of 'European space' between 1770 and 1830. How did histories, maps and geographical works depict and present the continent and what ideological implications does this have for understanding the idea of Europe? What geographical, social or racial ideas facilitate the construction of 'European' spaces? The project addresses important questions about the historical representation of Europe, whilst also exploring issues that remain central to contemporary understandings and definitions of Europe. He is also co-ordinating the seminar series The Uses of Space in Early Modern History|, which explores how spatial concepts can be employed by or applied to the study of history; and how particular spaces were used for practical and ideological purposes in specific periods.
Dr Stock is the author of The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe| (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), which investigates how early nineteenth-century British writers understood European culture, politics and history. By analysing the geographical, cultural and ideological concepts associated with the term 'Europe', the book shows how competing ideas of European identity find intellectual and political expression in early nineteenth-century Britain. Furthermore, it reassesses Romantic nationalism in terms of a more complex, transnational political aesthetic. He has also written articles on representations of Napoleon Bonaparte; the Shelleys' radical politics; nineteenth-century concepts of liberty; and eighteenth-century racial thought.
Before he joined LSE, Dr Stock was previously Lecturer in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Culture and Literature at Birkbeck, and Teaching Fellow in European Studies at UCL. He has taught widely in several disciplines, including intellectual history, political history, political theory, literary studies, and visual culture.
Recent Publications
Books
The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). For more details click here|.
Articles
'Almost a Separate Race': Racial Thought and the Idea of Europe in British Encyclopaedias and Histories, 1771-1830', Modern Intellectual History 8, no. 1 (2011): 3-29. To access this article click here|
'Liberty and Independence: The Shelley-Byron Circle and the State(s) of Europe', Romanticism 15, no. 2 (2009): 121-30. To access this article click here|.
'The Shelleys and the Idea of Europe', European Romantic Review 19, no. 4 (2008): 335-349. To access this article click here|.
'Imposing on Napoleon: Romantic Appropriation of Bonaparte', Journal of European Studies 34, no. 4 (2006): 363-388. To access this article click here|.
Essays and Review Articles
'The Shelleys on Display: Exhibiting Lives and Letters', Eighteenth-Century Studies, 45, no 1 (2011): 177-80. To access this essay click here|
'Iain Chambers, Mediterranean Crossings: the Politics of an Uninterrupted Modernity (Duke University Press, 2008)', Ethnic and Racial Studies 32, no. 4 (2009): 739-753.
Teaching
HY314: Representing the Past: Historiography and Historical Methods|
HY319: Napoleon and Europe|
Contact Details
Office number: EAS.E490
Telephone number: 020 7955 6039
E-mail Address: p.stock@lse.ac.uk|
Office Hours
Fridays, 12.00-13.00 and 16.00-17.00