Professor Samantha Ashenden Ph.D.

Personal Statement

I joined the University of Liverpool in September 2023, as Head of the Department of Politics. Before this I was head of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, where I also taught politics and sociology. While at Birkbeck I contributed to the London Consortium PhD Programme and taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. I am a member of the editorial board of the journal Economy and Society and reviews editor for the journal Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

My work is at the intersection of law, politics, and social theory. Across the last decade I have focused on two themes: guilt, violence, legitimacy, and problems of political obligation; and law, reproductive technologies, and the governance of families. I have recently published several articles on the Harvard political theorist Judith Shklar, and am currently working on the legal and political implications of the development of an international market in surrogacy services, tracing the significance of surrogacy for our understandings of filiation.

I would welcome enquiries from postgraduate students interested in topics related to my research specialisms.