Academic Research

Richard’s doctoral research is in political philosophy and twentieth century history of ideas.

The orienting point is the teaching and legacy of Leo Strauss. Questions of particular interest include Strauss’s intellectual biography, his early writings, Zionism, and the place of Jewish thought in Strauss’s revival of classical political philosophy.

Related focal points include the ‘University-in-Exile’ and the philosopher-émigrés of the 1930s and 1940s; the revival of Jewish medieval thinking in the first half of the twentieth century; the political and intellectual history of Zionism; and the philosophy of exile, with reference also to the rediscovery of the exoteric-esoteric art of writing.

An associated research interest concerns the varieties of conservative thought in 1920s and 1930s Germany, including that of Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and Ernst Jünger, pertaining to the writings of Leo Strauss and the development of Zionism in Germany.

Separately, he is also undertaking preparatory and archival research towards a study concerning Winston Churchill’s constitutional and imperial thought in Anglo-Irish history.