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Adrian O'Connor

Associate Professor

CONTACT information and cv

Office: Williams House, Second Floor
Phone: (727) 873-4523
Email: oconnora@usf.edu
Curriculum Vitae

EDUCATION

Ph.D. – University of Pennsylvania, 2009

TEACHING

I teach a wide range of courses in the political and cultural history of early modern and modern Europe, as well as thematic courses on the history of protest and politics, the history of assassination, and the history of political violence and terror.

RESEARCH

I am interested in the relationship between political culture(s) and forms of political action. My initial research concentrated on the cultural politics of eighteenth-century France, especially the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. My first book, In pursuit of politics: education and revolution in eighteenth-century France (Manchester University Press, 2017) examined how debates over education shed light on efforts to establish a system of participatory politics and representative government during the early years of the French Revolution.

I am currently finishing work on a second book project, tentatively titled Assassination: On Concepts and Killings (under contract with Georgetown University Press). This book offers a historically informed inquiry into the meaning of assassination as a political concept and its character as a political act. Bridging intellectual and disciplinary traditions, it offers a new framework for thinking about assassinations and new reasons for open and democratic societies to genuinely forswear the practice.

I have also published numerous articles and book chapters, which have appeared in French Historical Studies; French History; French Politics, Culture & Society; Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques; and edited volumes on Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought (2018); Crisis and Renewal in the History of Political Thought (2021); and Petitioning in the Atlantic World (2022), among other places.