People
Adrian O'Connor
Associate Professor
CONTACT information and cv
Office: Williams House
Email: oconnora@usf.edu
Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
Ph.D. – University of Pennsylvania, 2009
TEACHING
I teach a wide range of courses in the political and cultural history of early modern and modern Europe, as well as thematic courses on the history of protest and politics, the history of assassination, and the history of political violence and terror.
RESEARCH
I am interested broadly in the relationship between political culture(s) and forms
of political action.
My most recent book, On Assassination (forthcoming with Georgetown University Press, 2027), offers a historically informed
inquiry into the meaning of assassination as a political concept and its character
as a political act. Bridging intellectual and disciplinary traditions, it offers a
new framework for thinking about assassinations and new reasons for open and democratic
societies to genuinely forswear the practice.
My earlier research concentrated on the cultural politics of eighteenth-century France,
especially the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. My first book, In pursuit of politics: education and revolution in eighteenth-century France (Manchester University Press, 2017) examined how debates over education shed light
on efforts to establish a system of participatory politics and representative government
during the early years of the French Revolution.
I have also published numerous articles and book chapters on the Enlightenment, the
French Revolution, the history of education, and democratic society. These have appeared
in French Historical Studies; French History; French Politics, Culture & Society; Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques; and edited volumes such as Killing in the Name of the State (2026); Ethics in Practice (6th ed., 2025); Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought (2018); and Petitioning in the Atlantic World (2022), among other places.
Manchester University Press, 2019