School of Social and Political Science

Content

Introduction and closing remarks

Professor John Devaney, Head of the School of Social and Political Science, introduces the inaugural lecture of Professor Mihaela Mihai, December 2025. 

Professor Devaney's introduction

 There we go with the red lights on, which means we're being recorded, the reason we record all of our professorial inaugural lectures is a way of having a memento for, the individual themselves, but also it's a way of just showcasing the wonderful breadth of work that we have, within the School, that's all attributable to the wonderful colleagues that we have within the School of Social Political Science.

My name is John Devaney. I'm the Head of Social and Political Science. And I keep on saying at each of these, if any of you aren’t serial attenders, this is one of the best aspects of the role that I have. I get to come along and spend an hour listening to one of our fantastic colleagues talk about their work, and even if I knew nothing about their area of interest and expertise beforehand, I come away both better informed and fully enthused about what they do.

It's a real pleasure to be here this evening for the professorial inaugural lecture by our dear colleague, Professor Mihaela Mihai, who's professor of Political theory here at the University of Edinburgh. For those who haven't been to an inaugural lecture before, it's a way of either a newly appointed professor, or somebody who's been recently promoted, to deliver a public lecture, which is an insight into their area of expertise and the reason for why they've been, either promoted or appointed as a professor in such an illustrious university. But it's also an opportunity for us to have what university should be about: the opportunity to come together in fellowship as part of a community, and to invite those from outside the university to come and have an insight into what we do. Our central mission, and it's important for us to remember this at this particular moment in time, is to continue to promote excellence in teaching and excellence in research. And that's the reason that we have an institution like this. And we should be proud of that and also continue to defend that. 

Mihaela was promoted to her chair in August of 2023. I've been at this school for about eight years and hadn't really met Mihaela for the first couple of years, and then started hearing others talking about this wonderful colleague in PIR and in more recent years have had more of an opportunity for Mihaela to talk to her about her work and also to see the importance of the work that she's done within the institution, because for many academics, what they do is that they've got their own personal area of expertise and research alongside actually the contribution that they make to academia more broadly within the institution and also in Mihaela’s case, outside of the institution. 

If I can get my notes organized here, in terms of a bit of a bio, for Mihaela, she holds a BA in political science from the University of Bucharest. An M.A. with distinction in political theory from the University of Manchester and a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto. After holding a previous role at the University of York, and prior to that, postdoc roles at the universities of Coimbra in Portugal and Montreal in Canada. Mihaela joined Edinburgh in 2015, first as a senior researcher and then as a senior lecturer in 2017, before being promoted then to a personal chair in 2023. She's held visiting appointments at UCLA, the Free University in Berlin, the University of Sydney and at Oxford University. She's also the co-founder with Philip Cook, and former co-director between 2020 and 2023, of Critique, the Centre for Social and Political Thought, which is one of our most vibrant, and well-respected research centers within the whole university, not just within the school. Since 2022, she's an affiliate member of the center for the study of the Afterlife of Violence at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Her research interests cut across political theory, political science and cultural studies. And more precisely, she is interested in political emotions, political judgment, the politics of memory, art and politics, gender and theories of oppression. Some of her many, many career highlights include her two previous monographs, Political Memory and the Esthetics of Care: the Art of Complicity and Resistance, which was published in 2022, and before that, Negative Emotions and Transitional Justice, which was published in 2016. And she has an upcoming coauthored book which should come out in 2026, which is titled Europe's Grapes Turning Sour: Geopolitical Resentment and the Rise of the Romanian Far Right. Another highlight that I'd like to draw out is that, alongside all of the excellent research that she's done, Mihaela has also been somebody who's seen mentorship as a really important and central aspect of her academic role. And that resulted in her receiving the Outstanding Mentor Award and the SPS in 2019. 

So for tonight's inaugural lecture, which is entitled Critique as Political Care: Democracy, Memory and Theory, Mihaela will talk about sort of some of her work and how her theorizing about important issues around politics today have a relevance for the practice of politics. And she'll be focusing on, amongst many other things, healthcare ethics might help us conceptualize a practice that is essential to democratic politics, essentially critique. Mihaela, I am really looking forward to your presentation. You're going to speak for about 45 minutes. And then we'll have an opportunity for anybody who's still free this evening to join us in the foyer of the Chrystal Macmillan Building, for some refreshments and also to talk to Mihaela, both about her lecture this evening and also about her wonderful contribution to so many of the lives of everyone in the room.

Professor Devaney's closing remarks

On behalf of everyone, I'd just like to thank you for what's been a truly, thought provoking and informative lecture. It was interesting that you started off by thinking that we probably owe our academic genetics to who we were taught by, and where we were taught, and I'm sure that there's many students at the university have benefited from your teaching in terms of opening up their minds to not only a set of ideas, but a way of thinking about the world around us, that helps them engage better with the realities, including the possibilities as well as the challenges, of the world around us.

I was struck by what's really one of many things which are impressive about your work, this focus on interdisciplinarity as something which is about being comfortable in terms of spanning disciplines and not being constrained by the boundaries that there are, but by the boundaries themselves being the interesting places where really interesting discussions and insights can occur and that that's not something that is instrumental in any way. It's something that's quite foundational about your own work, and that's both impressive and also instructive to me in terms of how I try to engage in that type of work. I was really struck by the quote you had up, which was an ethics of care can combat exclusion and oppression. And I think that we're living through a time, and your new book engages with this, whereby we've really got to engage with those issues about oppression and exclusion and trying to find ways which are much more hopeful and liberating in terms of how we try and move forward and engage with those people who have very different types of ideas, but find a way of doing that that avoids us just shouting at one another, but trying to think about actually where the touch points are. And in a way to try to challenge as well as engage those ideas that are being put forward. I think your new book is both timely and necessary in responding to the rise of the far right and in a way that gives us the tools and the language in which to engage with them. 

So thank you very much on behalf of me. I've learned an awful lot this evening. I've really enjoyed yet another inaugural lecture. You're a great colleague to everyone in this room. And I know that we're all richer for you being a member of staff within the university. I hope everybody will take the opportunity to join you for a drink, to celebrate this important moment, but also sort of to talk to you about, the difference that you have made in their lives. Can we please show our appreciation again to Mihaela? Thank you.