Brian Rosebury

Brian Rosebury, who teaches political philosophy and the history of political ideas at the University of Central Lancashire, has research interests in literature (especially J.R.R.Tolkien), aesthetics, and moral and political philosophy.

His publications include ‘Revenge and Moral Judgement in Tolkien’ (Tolkien Studies, 2008); Tolkien: a Cultural Phenomenon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); and ‘The Historical Contingency of Aesthetic Experience’ (British Journal of Aesthetics, 2000), as well as contributions to The J.R.R.Tolkien Encyclopedia, edited by Michael Drout (Routledge, 2006). He has delivered invited lectures on Tolkien in Belgium, Poland, and Korea, has acted as a referee for Tolkien Studies and for philosophical journals including Ethics, Philosophical Quarterly, Mindand Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and has contributed book reviews to Tolkien Studies, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, Philosophical Review, and The European Legacy. He co-edited, with Martin Prochazka and Louise Armand of Charles University, Prague, ‘Towards a New Aesthetics: Technology, Intensity, Heterogeneity’ (Litteraria Pragensia, Volume 16, No. 32, December 2006).

Brian’s main current research project is a study of revenge, retribution and reciprocity as concepts in criminal justice and in moral and political philosophy: recent work includes ‘Respect for Just Revenge’ (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2008), ‘Private Revenge and its Relation to Punishment’ (Utilitas, 2009), and ‘Moore's Moral Facts and the Gap in the Retributive Theory’ (Criminal Law and Philosophy, 2011).