Dr. Gavin Rae
Gavin Rae is accredited to full Professor (Catedrático, July 2023) and is currently Profesor Titular (tenured Associate Professor) in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy. He holds 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, he was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Experienced Research Professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (2015–2019), while prior to that he taught at the American University in Cairo (Egypt) as an Assistant Professor (2012–2015) and Andrew Mellon Fellow (2010–2013). He currently maintains 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 has held Visiting Scholar positions at Jagiellonian University (2025), King's College London (2024), University of Oxford (2022), Royal Hollaway: University of London (2015), and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2012, 2013). He is 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.
His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth-century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of sociopolitical philosophy, ontology, theories of subjectivity, and ethics. Besides having published more than sixty book chapters and scholarly articles (over 90% of which have appeared in journals indexed in Q1-Q2 of Scimago), he has 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). His latest book, The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach, is forthcoming with Edinburgh University Press. He has 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 volumes are forthcoming: Transformation in Contemporary French Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press) and Critique and Political Reason: Exploring Critical Theory (Edinburgh University Press).
Contact — Academia — ResearchGate — ORCID
Current projects include:
(1) A major manuscript on political rationality from a postfoundational perspective. This will be published by Edinburgh University Press under the title The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach.
(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), California State University: Northridge (USA). He will contribute a chapter titled "From Magma to Plasticity: Transformation in Castoriadis and Malabou."
(3) Co-editing (with Emma Ingala and Cillian Ó Fathaigh), the volume Critique and Political Reason: Exploring Critical Theory (under contract with Edinburgh University Press), which explores the relationship between politics and reason within critical theory. The collection is composed of twelve original essays from scholars located at King’s College London (England), University of Cologne (Germany), Jagallonian University (Poland), University of Lisbon (Portugal), University of Dundee (Scotland), University of Belgrade (Serbia), Pompeu Fabra University, St. Louis University Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), State University of San Francisco (USA). He will contribute a chapter titled "The Irrational Ground of Reason: The Dialectic of Enlightenment and Freudian Drive Theory."
(4) 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, forthcoming).
(5) 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, forthcoming).
(6) A chapter on Sartre's later notion of collective action for Sartre and Contemporary Political Theory, edited by Kristian Klockars, Mattias Lehtinen, and Austin Hayden Smidt (New York: Routledge, forthcoming).
(7) Various articles, mainly engaging with the phenomenological tradition, that examine the question of action and its relation to the notion of free will, shock, and the relationship between madness and reason.
(8) 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.
(9) 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.