Evangelia Sembou

Evangelia Sembou talks about living in a cultural city and her pursuit of an academic career and despite finding Edinburgh cold, she hopes to come back one day.

Your time at the University

I chose Edinburgh University because I was interested in the broad course content. I received an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship to cover my fees and arrived in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1995.

Edinburgh is a great cultural city and I enjoyed my time there but it is very cold in the winter. I lived in Mylne’s Court on the Lawnmarket, in the historic heart of the city and loved it. I was only a short walk from George Square, the library and – of course –Edinburgh Castle.

Enjoy both your studies and your time in such a cultural city

Tell us about your experiences since leaving the University

After completing my MSc in 1996, I went to St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University to pursue a DPhil in Politics (Political Theory). I wrote my thesis on Hegel’s famous philosophical work “Phenomenology of Spirit”. Unfortunately, after completing my thesis, I did not get into academia directly and I have since taught in the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and given tutorials at Oxford University in addition to teaching in the Faculty of Continuing Education at Birkbeck College, University of London (2006-7).

I have been actively writing and have published articles on Hegel in such scholarly journals as History of Political Thought, the Jahrbuc

h für Hegelforschung and the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain. My books include ‘Midwifery’ and Criticism in G. W. F. Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” (revised version of doctoral thesis – Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2012), Plato’s Political Philosophy (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2012), Modern Theories of Politics (Peter Lang, 2013) and Hegel’s Phenomenology and Foucault’s Genealogy (Ashgate, 2015). I have also edited an anthology entitled Political Theory: The State of the Discipline (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). I am now editing an edited collection on Hegel’s Early Theological Writings. Future work will be on J. S. Mill.

Now I am aiming for an academic career in political theory in Britain and I would like the opportunity to come back to Edinburgh someday.

Alumni wisdom

Enjoy both your studies and your time in such a cultural city.Unfortunately, I did not have much time to enjoy the  festival, as I was writing up my MSc dissertation