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Dr John Wilesmith
Room: B.13, 29 Tavistock Square
Email: john.wilesmith@ucl.ac.uk
Biography
I am a Lecturer (Teaching) in Political Theory at UCL, and a member of the UCL Centre for the Pedagogy of Politics. I joined the Department as a Teaching Fellow in January 2018. Prior to this, I taught in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London.
I hold a PhD in Political Theory and an MA in Legal and Political Theory, both from UCL.
Research
My main areas of interest are social justice, egalitarianism, liberalism, analytic methods, and applied issues of economic ownership and control. So far, my published research has focused mainly on the structure and role of firms in a just political economy, and the nature and value of a ‘property-owning democracy’. A more embryonic area of interest that I plan to pursue is the pedagogy of political theory.
Publications
- Journal articles
- Wilesmith, J. (2021) ‘Why Size Matters: Property-Owning Democracy, Liberal Socialism, and the Firm’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 29(2), pp. 231–251.
- Wilesmith, J. (2015) ‘Social Equality and the Corporate Governance of a Property-Owning Democracy’, Diacritica, 29(2), pp.87–108.
- Book reviews
- Wilesmith, J. (2018) ‘Republic of Equals: Predistribution and Property-Owning Democracy, Alan Thomas’, Economics and Philosophy, 34(1), pp.114–120.
Teaching
Since 2018, I have led the following modules:
- Meanings of Liberty: Methods and Approaches in Political Theory (PUBL0022)
- Contemporary Political Philosophy II: Social Justice and Equality (PUBL0072)
- Global Ethics (PUBL0045)
- Authority, Democracy, and Resistance (POLS0032)
- Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutions (POLS0075)
- Philosophy, Values, and the Social Sciences (POLS0033)
I have also taught elements of Justice: The Moral Foundations of Politics (POLS0061) and Introduction to Politics (POLS0006), and I have supervised a range of undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations.