Celebrating the life and work of Dr Emile Perreau–Saussine

The event is free and open to the public, and takes place in the Fitzwilliam College Auditorium, at 5:30 – 7:00pm.

Dr Emile Perreau-Saussine (1972 – 2010) was a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, a young and gifted teacher and researcher who taught political philosophy and the history of political thought in the Department of Politics and International Studies. He died tragically young in 2010, aged 37.

Professor David Thompson, Fellow of Fitzwilliam and Emeritus Professor of Modern Church, said: “Emile was always scintillating company, both for Fellows and undergraduates, intellectually adventurous and never confined to a single philosophical system.”

The evening’s colloquium, entitled ‘Republicanism and Religion’, will be discussing faith in a democratic age.

Dr David Runciman, who was a colleague of Emile's in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge, will chair the event.

Speakers at the event will be Dr Christopher Brooke, Dr Philippe de Lara and Dr Richard Rex, all of whom worked with Emile in Cambridge or in France.

Two prizes have been set up in Emile’s name. Fitzwilliam College has created the Perreau-Saussine Prize, to be awarded to a student who achieves First Class Honours in any part of the PPS Tripos.

The Perreau-Saussine family has set up a prize for a humanities researcher under 40 whose work is published in French. This prize will be awarded for the first time in April 2011.

Emile Perreau-Saussine’s new book Catholicisme et démocratie: une histoire de la pensée politique is published in French on 17 February 2011.

Emile won the Prix Philippe Habert in 2005 for his first book, Alasdair MacIntyre: une biographie intellectuelle. The prize, which is for the best writing on political science by a young researcher, was presented by Mme Jacques Chirac.