We invite you to join us at Somerville College for this one-day conference dedicated to the ideas and influence of all the Mills: John Stuart Mill, James Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill and Helen Taylor.

The conference builds upon the success of the John Stuart Mill annual lecture hosted by Somerville College since 2016. It presents an opportunity for researchers from a wide range of disciplines, whether new to Mill research or long-established, to come together to exchange ideas on John Stuart Mill and members of Mill’s family, and promote future research into academic themes which continue to be important in a changing world.

The Programme

The speakers

John Ayshford is a PhD student at the University of Manchester. His doctoral research aims to elucidate republican elements in the thought of John Stuart Mill and show how Mill innovated some of the core tenets of the republican tradition. Ayshford is also a co-editor of a recently published book, The Simons of Manchester (2024), which rehabilitates the history of one of Manchester’s most influential families, the Simons, and critically examines their work in business and social reform from 1860-1960.

Eric Fabri is FNRS postdoctoral researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Guest Professor at the Université de Namur and the University of Antwerp where he teaches political theory. He wrote a PhD thesis on property rights and democratic theory. After postdocs in Oxford, ULB and Harvard, he now works on the philosophy of inheritance taxation, on the social ontology of Cornelius Castoriadis, and on the philosophy of non-humans and environmental ethics. He is the author of “Pourquoi la propriété privée?” (2023) and of several other articles and co-edited books on Castoriadis’ radical democracy, Neoliberalism and sovereignty, the politics of non-humans and the philosophy of property.

Elżbieta Filipow is a research assistant in the Department of Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw and she is principal investigator in the research project entitled ‘The Place of Equality in John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism’ financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) and a research assistant in the project ‘Enlightenment-Era Pedagogical Reforms and Arguments against the Gendered Conception of Human Progress in Poland and Germany’ financed by National Agency of Academic Exchange (NAWA, Poland). She is completing her doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled ‘Perfectionism and Justice. The Equality of Women and Men in John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism’.

Lisa Forsberg is a senior research fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford, and research fellow at Somerville College, working in moral and legal philosophy.

Thomas Holland is a PhD candidate in Political Thought at King’s College, Cambridge. His thesis explores political theories of inherited wealth and distributive justice between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls.

Luyao Li is a visiting student at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. Her research interests lie in ethics and political philosophy, with a particular focus on early modern Western political thought.

Ben Saunders (D.Phil Oxon 2008) is an Associate Professor in the department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. He has published various articles on J. S. Mill’s thought, including his qualitative hedonism (Utilitas, 2010) and his harm principle (Mind, 2016; Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2024).

Thomas Sherman is a PhD candidate studying Political Thought and Intellectual History at Christ’s College, Cambridge. His thesis is a re-evaluation of James Mill’s imperial theory, contextualised within his wider philosophy and political thought.

Anthony Skelton is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He researches in the areas of normative ethics and the history of ethics. He is the author of Sidgwick’s Ethics (CUP) and of articles appearing in Ethics, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, and Utilitas, among others.

Registration

Register for a place here.

There are plenty of places available on this conference, so please do sign up. You will be sent a confirmatory email within two working days of registering for the event.

Refreshments

Refreshments, including lunch, will be provided throughout the day. Please indicate your dietary requirements when you register.

Access arrangements

Access to the conference room is via steps or ramp. Facilities are available on the same level as the conference room. If you need assistance in reaching the conference room through college, please make the conference organiser aware when you register.

Further information

If you have any questions about the conference, please contact Sarah Butler, Librarian at Somerville College, on librarian@some.ox.ac.uk or phone 01865 270688.