Professor Culp: On the Omnipresence of International Affairs in Paris

Julian Culp is Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow at the Center for Critical Democracy Studies at The American University of Paris. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the Goethe University of Frankfurt.

Professor Julian Culp
Let’s begin with your academic background. 

As an undergraduate I was mainly trained in analytic philosophy and economics. The strong emphasis on formal logic and quantitative methods still shapes my understanding of the academic rigor that serious scholarship must display. Yet, as a graduate student I moved towards questions of global political thought, and I was very lucky to conduct my research under the guidance of first-rate scholars like Charles Beitz, Allen Buchanan, and Rainer Forst at Princeton, Duke, and Frankfurt universities. These were very exciting times, since the academic debate about my PhD topic, global justice, was exploding within political philosophy and I was able to witness first-hand how the new theories were developed and then critiqued. My first book, Global Justice and Development, is very much a reflection of these discussions. In this book I aim to re-frame the global justice debate by maintaining that the question ‘What is a just global distribution of resources?’ should be answered indirectly by responding first of all to the question ‘Who is to decide what counts as a just global distribution of resources?’ I have been a professor in the Department of History and Politics at the American University of Paris since 2018.

How did you discover AUP?

I first got to know AUP through Professor Richard Beardsworth, who gave an amazing talk on his book on Cosmopolitanism and International Relations Theory in Frankfurt while I was finishing my PhD there. I later reviewed the book Anatomy of Failure by AUP Professor Oliver Feltham for the Notre Dame Philosophical Review, and that book also impressed me very much. When I saw a job advertisement for a position in political philosophy and global justice at AUP, I felt that this was an exceptional opportunity and an excellent match. AUP’s global citizenship education already seemed to put into practice what I was defending in theory, regarding the ways in which global justice and democratic citizenship education are interconnected.

Can you share a little about your research on the interconnectedness of global justice and democratic citizenship education?

My frustration with the fact that many agents, including myself, lack an effective motivation to act on demands of global justice propelled me to write my second book, called Democratic Education in a Globalized World. In this book I argue that realizing global justice requires education that facilitates a fair deliberation across national borders about issues such as migration, race, colonialism, global poverty, climate change, etc. Therefore, I defend democratic justice as a moral end of education, and maintain that citizenship education should cultivate democratic consciousness not only within but also beyond states.

How does your research inform your work at AUP?

My teaching is very closely connected to my research in philosophy and political theory. My course on Global Justice, for example, draws on my own scholarship as well as on my experiences as editor of the journal Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric. I’m currently working on a third book, tentatively entitled Democratic Citizenship and Digital Technologies, and this ongoing research informs my newest course called Digital Citizenship. I also regularly discuss my research with colleagues at the Center for Critical Democracy Studies and at international conferences.

MA in International Affairs

International Affairs is currently experiencing tectonic shifts of a magnitude that we have not seen since the end of the Cold War. 

– Professor Julian Culp
Julian Culp at an AUP event
In what ways do you collaborate with AUP’s master’s students?

I teach a graduate course on international ethics, and I also supervise master’s theses. I very much appreciate the students’ maturity and their interest in studying subjects that truly matter – dangerous climate or global poverty, for example. I meet with master’s students in person to discuss their research projects as well as to reflect on their future career plans.

What is unique about the MA in International Affairs at AUP?

AUP’s MA in International Affairs is multi-perspectival: the faculty is international and has expertise in a variety of academic traditions; students must constantly switch between their usual and the distinctly Parisian, French, and European ways of looking at international affairs; and the tremendous amount of job opportunities at Paris-based international organizations allows students to blend their academic and practical work.

What are you excited about as you look toward the future of International Affairs and your work with AUP master’s students?

International Affairs is currently experiencing tectonic shifts of a magnitude that we have not seen since the end of the Cold War. The deconsolidation of democracy, the rise of China, and the war in Ukraine have put the liberal international order in a state of crisis. It’s fascinating to study the many aspects of this crisis and its possible outcomes with students coming from all over the world – especially when you know that many of the crucial decisions are made just a few blocks away from AUP. International Affairs is omnipresent in Paris.