Bingshu Zhao (Dr)

I work in the fields of political theory and the history of political thought, based at the Exeter Centre for Political Thought. I defended my PhD dissertation with no corrections, 'Bringing the Family Back into Early Modern Political Thought', which examines the idea of family in relation to politics and the modern state in Aristotle, Bodin, Hobbes, and Filmer, highlighting two aspects of the family. I have been developing my research interests towards comparative political theory and global intellectual history.

I have presented my work at conferences, including the International Society for Intellectual History Conference (Edinburgh) in 2023, the Association for Social and Political Philosophy Annual Conference (Swansea), the Sixteenth Century Society Conference (Toronto) in 2024, Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Conference (York), Political Studies Association 75th Annual International Conference (Birmingham), and The 26th International Conference on the History of Concepts (Bologna) in 2025.

I've been contributing to the NERC-funded project RENEW (Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach) as a research associate. I work with the team on Community Actions and aim to produce an online resource platform, 'Environmental Justice Digest', encompassing the themes and opinions we gathered from the deliberative discussions at a series of environmental justice forums and parliaments organised across 2025, theoretical perspectives on environmental justice, case studies, and various resources. 

I was an initial convenor of the Exeter Politics Postgraduate Research Seminar in 2021. Alongside the merging of the Politics Department and Sociology, Philosophy, and Anthropology Department in 2022, we expanded our organisation, and I continued to serve on the convening committee of the Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology PGR Seminar until 2023. 

I have been a research assistant at the Centre for Political Thought since 2021 and am involved in the research networks of “Entanglement of Political Languages” and “Citizens’ Empowerment”. Together with my colleagues, I have conducted interviews with scholars working in various areas around the world, including:

• Interview with Professor Zhang Shuangli (Fudan University) on European Marxism and 'The Hegel-Marx Problem' (available soon)
• Interview with Professor Thomas Heberer (University of Duisburg-Essen):  The Historical Process and Institutions of Modernisation and Development in the Context of a Post-Revolutionary ‘Socialist’ China  
• Interview with Professor Sun Xiangchen (Fudan University): Positioning Chinese and Western Ontologies in a Meaningful Dialogue 
• Interview with Professor Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter): On Global Modernities and Transculturation in Modernist Literature 
• Interview with Dr Nan Zhang (Fudan University, University of Hong Kong): English Literature, Global Modernism, and Transcultural Conversation 
• Interview with Dr Chunrong Liu (University of Oslo, Fudan University): Citizen Empowerment, Spontaneous Order and Community Building in Post-Reform Urban China 
• Interview with Dr Andrea Ghiselli (Fudan University): Chinese Academia, Foreign Policy, and BRI Research 
• Interview with Professor Tongdong Bai (Fudan University): Confucianism and knowledge across borders 
• Interview with Dr Emilie Frenkiel (Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC)): Citizens’ empowerment and knowledge across borders