Associate Professor John Rundell
Reader in Social Theory and Director of The Ashworth Program in Social Theory
Associate Professor John Rundell studied sociology and philosophy at La Trobe University, gaining his Doctorate in 1985. He taught in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Monash University from 1986 until joining the Ashworth Program in 1993. He is an editor of Thesis Eleven (1982-2007), Critical Horizons and The Social and Critical Theory Book Series, and has published Origins of Modernity: The Origins of Modern Social Theory from Kant to Hegel to Marx and jointly edited Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity (with Peter Beilharz and Gillian Robinson), Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity (with Gillian Robinson), Culture and Civilization: Classical and Critical Readings (with Stephen Mennell), Blurred Boundaries: Migration, Ethnicity, Citizenship (with Rainer Bauboeck), Critical Theory After Habermas Encounters and Departures (with Dieter Freundlieb and Wayne Hudson), Contemporary Perspectives in Social and Critical Philosophy (with Danielle Petherbridge et al), and Recognition, Work, Politics New Directions in French Critical Theory (with Jean-Philippe Deranty, Danielle Petherbridge and Robert Sinnerbrink). Currently he is working on the issue of multiple modernities, and the problem of human self-images in social theory, with particular reference to Castoriadis’ notion of the radical imaginary. These two vantage points inform his discussions of classical and contemporary social and critical theory
John will be teaching the following subjects in 2009
- Semester 1 - 136-074 Modernity Revolution to Social Movements
- Semester 2 - 136-073 Critical Theories
Contact details
Associate Professor John Rundell
Room 107, Old Quad Building
The University of Melbourne
VIC 3010 Australia
T: +61 3 8344 7287
E: johnfr@unimelb.edu.au
Publications
Books
- Rundell, J.F, Origins of Modernity: The origins of modern social theory from Kant to Hegel to Marx, Polity Press, London: 249pp. (1987; Second Edition 1989)
- Beilharz, P, Robinson, G and Rundell, J.F (eds.,). Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: viii+259pp. (1993)
- Robinson, G, and Rundell, J.F (eds.,). Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, Routledge, London: viii+192pp. (1994)
- Rundell, J.F, and Mennell, S.J (eds.,). Culture and Civilization: Classical and Critical Readings, Routledge, London, (1998).
- Bauboeck, R, and Rundell, J.F (eds.,). Blurred Boundaries: Migration, Ethnicity, Citizenship Ashgate, Aldershot, (1998).
- Robinson, G, and Rundell, J.F (eds.,). Tahayyül gücünü yeniden düsünmek Ayrinti Yayinlari, Istanbul, (1999) (Turkish translation of Rethinking Imagination)
- Freundlieb, D, Hudson, W, and Rundell, J.F (eds.,). Critical Theory After Habermas: Encounters and Departures, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands (2004)
- Rundell, J, Petherbridge, D, Bryant, J, Hewitt, J, and Smith, J (eds.,). Contemporary Perspectives in Social and Critical Philosophy, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands (2004)
- Deranty, J-P., Petherbridge, D, Rundell, J, and Sinnerbrink, R, (eds) Recognition, Work, Politics: New Directions in French Critical Theory, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, (2007)
Book Chapters
- Rundell, J.F. 'Marx and the Postmodern Image of Society', in Postmodern Conditions, (eds.,) A. Milner, P. Thomson and C. Worth, Centre for General and Comparative Literature, Monash University: pp.155-184 (1988) (2nd edition, Berg Publishers, London: 1990)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Jurgen Habermas', in Social Theory, (ed.,) P. Beilharz, Allen & Unwin, Sydney: pp.133-140 (1992)
- Rundell, J.F. 'The Symptom of Postmodernity', in Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity, (eds.,) P. Beilharz, G. Robinson & J.F. Rundell, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: pp.139-148 (1993)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Creativity and Judgement: Kant on Reason and Imagination', in Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, (eds.,) G. Robinson & J.F. Rundell, Routledge, London: pp.87-117 (1994)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Introduction' to Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity, (ed.,) G. Robinson & J.F. Rundell, Routledge, London: pp.1-11 (1994)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Gadamer and the Circles of Hermeneutics' in (ed.,) D. Roberts, Contemporary German Social Theory: Gadamer, Habermas, Luhmann, Interpretation Series, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, (1995), pp. 10-38.
- Rundell, J.F and Mennell, S.J (eds.,), 'Introduction: Civilization, Culture and The Human Self-Image', in Culture and Civilization: Classical and Critical Readings, Routledge, London, (1998)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Tensions of Citizenship in an Age of Diversity: Reflections on Territoriality, Cosmopolitanism and Symmetrical Reciprocity', in Blurred Boundaries: Migration, Ethnicity, Cititizenship, Avebury, Aldershot, (1998), pp. 321-340
- Bauboeck, R, and Rundell, J.F, 'Preface', in Blurred Boundaries: Migration, Ethnicity, Cititizenship, Avebury, Aldershot, (1998), pp. 7-13
- Rundell, J.F. 'Modernity, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: Creating Social Theory', in Handbook of Social Theory, edited by George Ritzer and Barry Smart, London, Sage, 2000, pp. 13-29
- Rundell, J.F. 'Imaginings, Narratives and Otherness: On the Critical Hermeneutics of Richard Kearney', in Traversing the Imaginary: Encounters with Richard Kearney, edited by John Manoussakis, Rowan and Littlefield, (2003) also published in Thesis Eleven, Number 73, May, 2003: 105-119
- Rundell, J.F. 'Norbert Elias', in Enyclopedia of Social Theory, edited by George Ritzer, Sage Publications, London, (2004)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Agnes Heller', in Enyclopedia of Social Theory, edited by George Ritzer, Sage Publications, London, (2004)
- Rundell, J.F. 'From Indigenous Civilization to Indigenous Modernities: Sacred Narratives, terra nullius and an Australian Bestiarium', in Rethinking Civilizational Analysis, edited by Said Arjomand and Edward Tiryakian, Sage Publishers, London 2004
- Rundell, J.F. 'Modernization', in The Encyclopedia of Social Science (Third Edition), edited by Adam and Jessica Kuper, Routledge, London, (2004)
- Rundell, J.F. with Hudson, Wayne and Freundlieb, Dieter. 'Reason, Language, Intersubjectivity', in Critical Theory After Habermas: Encounters and Departures, edited by Dieter Feundlieb, Wayne Hudson and John Rundell, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, (2004)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Imaginary Turns in Critical Theory Imagining Subjects in Tension', in Critical Theory After Habermas: Encounters and Departures edited by Dieter Feundlieb, Wayne Hudson and John Rundell, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, (2004)
- Rundell, J, Petherbridge, D, Bryant, J, Hewitt, J, Smith, J. 'Introduction: Histories, recognition and subjectivities', in Contemporary Perspectives in Social and Critical Philosophy, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, (2004)
- Rundell, J. “Durkheim and the Reflexive Condition of Modernity”, in Deranty, J-P., et al, (eds), Recognition, Work, Politics: Themes and Dialogues in French Critical Theory, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 2007
- Deranty, J.-P., Petherbridge, D., and Rundell, J. "Themes and Dialogues in Contemporary French Critical Theory", in J. P. Deranty et al (eds), Recognition, Work, Politics: New Directions in French Critical Theory, Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, (2007)
Articles
- Rundell, J.F. 'Karl Korsch, Historicised Dialectics', in Thesis Eleven No.3: pp.115-134 (1981)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Review of R. Selucky, Marxism, Socialism, Freedom', in Telos No.50: pp.228-234 (Winter 1981-82)
- Rundell, J.F. 'From the Shores of Reason to the Horizon of Meaning: Some remarks on Habermas' and Castoriadis' theories of culture,' in Thesis Eleven No.22: pp.5-24 (1989)
- Rundell, J.F. 'The Jacobin Critique of Modernity: The Case of Peter Tkachev', in Thesis Eleven No.27: pp.125-151 (1990)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Beyond Novelty, Beyond Crisis: The Tensions of Modernity', in New Formations, Number 31, Spring/Summer, pp. 158-174 (1997)
- Rundell, J.F. 'Review of Neil J. Smelzer's Prolematics of Sociology The Georg Simmel Lectures', University of California Press, 1997, for The American Journal of Behavioural Sciences (1997)
- Rundell, J.F. 'The Hermeneutic Imagination and Imaginary Creation: Ourselves, Others and Autonomy', in Divinatio, volume 6, autumn-winter, 1998, pp. 1-22
- Rundell, J.F. 'The Postmodern Ethical Condition A Conversation with Agnes Heller', in Critical Horizons, Volume 1, number, 1, 2000, pp 135- 145
- Rundell, J.F. 'Imaginary Turns in Critical Theory Imagining Subjects in Tension', in Critical Horizons, Volume 2, Number 1, 2001, pp. 61-92
- Rundell, J.F. 'Love and Modernity, Eros and Imagination', in Divinatio, volume 14, Autumn-Winter, 2001.
- Rundell, J.F. 'Review of Randall Collins', in Macrohistory Essays in Sociology of the Long Run, for The American Journal of Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 38 (3), 319-320, Summer 2002
- Rundell, J.F. 'Strangers, Citizens and Outsiders – otherness, multiculturalism and the cosmopolitan imaginary in mobile societies', in Thesis Eleven, number 78, 2004, pp. 97-111.
- Rundell, J.F. ‘Durkheim and the Reflexive Condition of Modernity’, Critical Horizons, Vol. 7, 2006, pp 180-206.
- Rundell, J.F. Review of Claude Lefort’s Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy, in Critical Horizons, Vol 8, 2, 2007, 256-262.
- Rundell, J.F. ‘Democratic revolutions, power and The City: Weber and Political Modernity’, in Thesis Eleven, 2008 (forthcoming).