Greyzone

Name

Dr Mihaela Mihai

Title

Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, Co-Director of the Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought, Programme Director MSc International Political Theory

Organisation

Politics and International Relations School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh

Address

3F1 room 3.21

18 Buccleuch Place

Edinburgh

UK

EH88LN

Telephone

+44 (0)1316506636

E-Mail

Mihaela.Mihai{at}ed.ac.uk

Critical Social and Political Theory Arts and politics Architecture and political theory Political emotions Political memory and historical injustice Comparative constitutionalism gender Theories of democracy

Education

• 2009 PhD, the University of Toronto, Toronto (Canada).
• 2004 MA, University of Manchester, Manchester (United Kingdom).

Research Interests

My research interests cut across political theory, political science and law. More precisely, I am interested in political emotions, political judgment, the politics of memory, art and politics, gender, and theories of oppression.

Before coming to Edinburgh, I was appointed as the 50th Anniversary Lecturer in Politics at the University of York.  Previously, I spent one year as a researcher at the Centre for Research in Ethics at the University of Montreal, Canada and two years at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. I held visiting positions at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford University and the Philosophy Department at Sydney University.

I have recently completed an European Research Council Starting Grant, entitled: Illuminating the 'Grey Zone': Addressing Complex Complicity in Human Rights Violations.

Publications

Monograph

• 2021 Monograph Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care. The Art of Complicity and Resistance. Forthcoming with Stanford University Press. Series: Cultural Memory in the Present.
• 2016 Monograph Negative Emotions and Transitional Justice.  Columbia University Press. Book page.

Edited Books

• 2020 Co-edited book (with Mathias Thaler), Political Violence and the Imagination: Complicity, Memory and Resistance (Routledge NY). Book page.
• 2015 Co-edited book (with Albena Azmanova): Reclaiming Democracy: Judgment, Responsibility and the Right to Politics. Routledge NY. Series: Advances in Democratic Theory. Book page.
• 2014 Co-edited book (with Mathias Thaler). Title: On the Uses and Abuses of Political Apologies. Palgrave. Series: Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Book page.

Blind Peer-Reviewed Articles

• 2021 "Foundational Moments, Representative Claims and the Ecology of Social Ignorance." Forthcoming in Political Studies.
• 2020 "The Hero’s Silences: Vulnerability, Complicity, Ambivalence", Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2020.1796332.
• 2019 Engaging Vulnerabilities: An Outline for a Responsive and Responsible Theory. Online first in Journal of Social Philosophy, https://doi-org.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/10.1111/josp.12316. Special issue Understanding Solidarity with Refugees.
• 2019 "The ‘Affairs’ of Political Memory: Hermeneutical Dissidence from National Myth-Making", Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Volume 24,  Issue 4: Institutional Transformations: Imagination, Embodiment, and Affect, 2019, Pages 52-69, https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2019.1635825
• 2019 "The Caring Refusenik: A Portrait" forthcoming in Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory,  Volume 26, Issue 1

  March 2019, Pages 148-162, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12384.

• 2018 "Architectural Transitional Justice? Political Renewal within the Scars of a Violent Past" International Journal of Transitional Justice,  Volume 12, Issue 3, November 2018, Pages 515–536, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijy019.
• 2018 "Understanding complicity: Memory, hope and the imagination" online first in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2019.1565692.
• 2017 "Epistemic Marginalisation and the Seductive Power of Art", online first in Contemporary Political Theory, November 2018, Volume 17, Issue 4, pp 395–416, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-017-0186-z.
• 2016 "Theorizing Change: Between Reflective Judgment and the Inertia of Political Habitus", European Journal of Political Theory (15):1, pp. 22-42.
• 2014  “Denouncing Historical ‘Misfortunes’: From Passive Injustice to Reflective Spectatorship,” Political Theory 42, pp. 443–467.
• 2014 “Theorizing Agonistic Emotions,” Parallax 20(2), pp. 31–48.
• 2013 “When the State Says ‘Sorry’: State Apologies as Exemplary Political Judgments,” Journal of Political Philosophy 21(2), pp. 200–220.
• 2011 “Socialising Negative Emotions: Transitional Criminal Trials in the Service of Democracy,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 31(1), pp. 111–131.
• 2011 “Emotions and Criminal Law,” Philosophy Compass, 6(9), pp. 599–610.
• 2010 “Transitional Justice and the Quest for Democracy: A Contribution to a Political Theory of Democratic Transformations,” Ratio Juris. An International Journal in Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 23(2), pp. 183–204.
• 2010 “Public Negative Emotions and the Judicial Review of Transitional Justice Bills: Lessons from Three Contexts,” Papeles del Centro de Estudios sobre la Identidad Colectiva 60, pp. 1–29.
• 2010 “Julgamentos penais em períodos de transição e o desafio das emoções: histórias de dois países” (“Criminal Trials in Periods of Transition and the Challenge of Emotions: Stories from Two Countries”) Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais 88, pp. 155–184.

Special Issues