Prof Leigh Jenco

This course is available on the MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Political Science (Global Politics) and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: To apply for a place on this course, please submit a short statement of no more than 200 words via LfY. Your statement should outline your reasons for applying and explain how the course will support your academic and/or career goals. If applicable, you should also demonstrate how you meet any pre-requisites listed in the course guide. If the course is compulsory for your programme, no written statement is required.

Priority for places on Government (GV) courses will be given first to students for whom the course is compulsory. Where applicable, priority will then be given to students on the Department of Government programmes listed in the ‘Availability’ section of the course guide, followed by students on other programmes listed in that section. Students on all other programmes will be considered next, where a course is available as an outside option. You should ensure that you meet any pre-requisites listed in the course guide before applying. Places on capped courses cannot be guaranteed. Where a course is oversubscribed, places will be allocated based on programme priority and the written statement.

Deadline for applications: The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 25 September 2026. You can expect to be informed of the outcome of your application by 12:00 noon on Monday 28 September 2026. Any places remaining after this date will be allocated based on priority and written statement - up until course selection closes.

For queries contact: gov.msc@lse.ac.uk.

This course is capped at two groups. Priority will be given to students enrolled on the MSc in Political Theory programme, and then to students in other Department of Government MSc programmes.

Interest in, and some familiarity with, political theory or intellectual history.

This course will examine the consequences of, and responses to, the historic domination of Euro-American forms of knowledge in the field of political theory. Situating political theory as one of many disciplines that reinforce the cultural imperialism of colonial orders, the course will consider how postcolonial theorists have diagnosed this form of epistemic imperialism. We will go on to discuss how recent attempts at forging a “comparative political theory” might (or might not) productively engage more diverse forms of thinking for the purpose of making our conversations about political life more truly global, rather than parochially “Western.” The course will provide students with the vocabulary and conceptual tools to navigate this difficult theoretical terrain, through a focus on a close reading of key texts. We focus in particular on how historical narratives and uses of the past complicate the attempt to overcome Eurocentrism. This course will be of interest to students of political theory, intellectual history, and the history of political and social thought.

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay (1500 words).

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay (1,500 words maximum excluding footnotes and bibliography) in the AT.

• Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Idris, Murad, Leigh K Jenco, and Megan C. Thomas, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Euben, Roxanne L. 2006. Journeys to the Other Shore. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Chen, Kuan-Hsing. 2010. Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization. Durham [NC]: Duke University Press.
• Jenco, Leigh. 2015. Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hokari, Minoru. 2011. Gurindji Journey: A Japanese Historian in the Outback. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Course participation (25%).

Essay (75%, 3000 words) in Winter Term Week 1.

Course participation will be assessed in the AT.