Dr. Gavin Rae
Gavin Rae is Associate Professor (Profesor Titular) of Philosophy in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy. I hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy (University of Warwick, 2010); M.A. in Continental Philosophy (University of Warwick, 2006); M.Sc. by Research in Political Theory (University of Edinburgh, 2004); and B.A. (Hons) in Business Administration (Robert Gordon University, 2003). Before joining UCM, I was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Experienced Research Professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (2015–2019), while prior to that I taught at the American University in Cairo (Egypt) as an Andrew Mellon Fellow (2010–2013) and Assistant Professor (2012–2015). I currently maintain affiliate member status with the Contemporary Political Theory Research Group at Royal Holloway: University of London (England), as well as with the Scottish Centre for Continental Philosophy at the University of Dundee (Scotland), and have held Visiting Scholar positions at King's College London (2024), University of Oxford (2022), Royal Hollaway: University of London (2015), and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2012, 2013). I am currently the Principal Investigator for a major four-year project funded by the Spanish Government titled “The Politics of Reason” and the co-editor of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory.
My research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth-century European philosophy, where I work at the intersection of sociopolitical philosophy, ontology, theories of subjectivity, and ethics. Besides having published over sixty scholarly articles and book chapters, I have authored seven monographs, the most recent of which are Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024); Poststructuralist Agency (Edinburgh University Press, 2020); Evil in the Western Philosophical Tradition (Edinburgh University Press, 2019); and Critiquing Sovereign Violence (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). I have also co-edited five volumes: Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025); Philosophy across Borders: Perspectives from Contemporary Theory (Routledge, 2025); Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2021); The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics (Routledge, 2019); and Subjectivity and the Political (Routledge, 2018). The following volume is forthcoming: Transformation in Contemporary French Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press).
Contact — Academia — ResearchGate — ORCID
I am currently working on various projects including:
(1) Revising a manuscript on political rationality from a postfoundational perspective for a major international university press.
(2) Co-editing (with Emma Ingala and Cillian Ó Fathaigh), the volume Transformation in Contemporary French Philosophy (under contract with Edinburgh University Press), which explores the question of transformation in contemporary French theory (Bergson to Malabou). The collection is composed of twelve original essays from scholars located at the Macquarie University (Australia), University of Vienna (Austria), University of Regina (Canada), King’s College London, London Metropolitan University, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Reading, University of Sussex, University of West of England (England), University of Haifa (Israel), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), University of Scotland (Dundee), Kennesaw State University (USA). I will contribute a chapter titled "From Magma to Plasticity: Transformation in Castoriadis and Malabou."
(3) A chapter on the relationship between Heidegger and Deleuze for The Deleuzian Mind, edited by Jeffrey A. Bell and Henry Somers-Hall (New York: Routledge, under contract).
(4) A chapter on Castoriadis's notion of the new for Philosophical Perspectives on Artistic Agency, edited by Alistair Macaulay, Timothy Deane-Freeman, and Antonia Pont (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, under contract).
(5) Various articles, mainly engaging with the phenomenological tradition, that examine the question of action and its relation to the notion of free will.
(6) A manuscript engaging with the question of action in post-Kantian philosophy, paying particuar attention to the role that the question of will and willing plays therein.
(7) Developing the activities of the four-year project "The Politics of Reason" (PID2020-117386GA-I00; PI: Gavin Rae) funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Government of Spain. The project website can be found here.