Cameron Bowman

Research Topic: An Intellectual History of Slavery in the British Empire, Beginnings to 1772

Research

My doctoral thesis focuses on anglophone justifications of slavery in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The project investigates the Aristotelian notion of natural slavery—that some people are slaves by nature—in an eighteenth century context. In particular, I'm attempting to understand the depiction of non-European people as unable to form sophisticated modes of government or access political self-consciousness in eighteenth century thought and how this related to justifications of enslavement. I focus on European philosophical treatises on slavery, textual descriptions of Africa, and texts related to Christianisation disputes to delineate the political, theological and moral legitimations of human bondage used to support the transatlantic slave system. The project will contribute to scholarship on a pressing contemporary issue: understanding the historical legitimations of relationships of subordination.

Reviews and Essays

'Review of Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution by Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson,' Economic History Review, 20 November 2024. 

 'Aesthetics and gender in Richard Whatmore's The End of Enlightenment' History of European Ideas, 22 April 2025.

Teaching 

Tutor for 'British Politics and Government since 1900', Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Oxford, 2024-25. 

Academic Profile

My graduate studies are being supported thanks to the Angus Hawkins Scholarship at Keble College, which I was awarded in 2023.

I completed my undergraduate degree in History and Spanish at the University of Exeter and my Master's in the History of Political Thought and Intellectual History at Queen Mary University of London and University College London

Supervisor: Ian McBride