Janet Coleman, FRHistS, co-founder and co-executive editor of History of Political Thought, joined the department in 1987. She is one of the convenors of the History of Political Ideas staff/postgraduate seminar at the Institute of Historical Research.
From 2000-03 she was a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow researching: 'Pre-modern understandings of property: personal ownership and self-understanding' reflecting her interests in Ancient Greek, Roman, Medieval and Renaissance intellectual and social history.
As the Benedict Lecturer, Boston University (2002) she delivered a series of lectures on the decline of confidence in public right reason from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
In Autumn 2006 she was a Braudel Research Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy studying contemporary Italian scholarship on pre-Justinian Roman law.
In December 2007 she delivered the Dimaras Lecture at the Institute for Neo-Hellenic Research, National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, Greece: 'Ancient Greek, modern and post-modern agonisms: the possibilities for democratic toleration'.
In 2009 she became a Global Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University, USA.