Christian J. Emden is Frances Moody Newman Professor,
Professor of German Intellectual History and Political Thought, and
Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Literatures and
Cultures at Rice University. He is also one of the directors of
Rice’s Program in Politics, Law and Social Thought. His work falls
into the field of modern German and European intellectual history
with an emphasis on political thought. Within the wider context of
modern intellectual history, Emden’s research is mainly concerned
with varieties of political realism, especially as they focus on
the relationship between active political citizenship and the
demands of the modern state, and he is also interested in
postnational manifestations of political citizenship. A second line
of inquiry is concerned with the emergence of normativity and the
conditions of normative order. This approach often links recent
discussions in philosophical naturalism to central issues in
political theory and the history of political thought.