Biography
Yuchen joined the Department of Political Economy in October 2019. He studies early modern political and social thought, with a focus on the 18th century. His doctoral project, focused on David Hume’s awareness and analysis of modern politics, investigates Hume’s account, among his contemporaries’, of why politics in 18th-century Britain and Europe was different from the politics of all previous times and all other places, how that mode of politics originated and functioned, what dangers that mode of politics was susceptible to, how those dangers could be avoided, and where that mode of politics tended to approach.
Yuchen holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Politics and Public Administration (2017) and a Master’s Degree in Political Theory (2019), both from Peking University.
Research Interests
- History of modern political and social thought, especially 17-18th century
- Hume, Smith, and the Scottish Enlightenment
- Sociability and the modern state
- Natural jurisprudence and natural right theories
- English historiography