For two decades, Dr Natalie Doyle, Deputy Director of the Monash European and EU Centre, and Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, has researched a specific strand of French social and political theory, with a particular interest in the intellectual heir of its leading figures Marcel Gauchet – whose major project, a four volume history and theory of European democracy, has just been published. Dr Doyle has also pursued research into the crisis of the European Union and the risk of ‘co-radicalisation’.

In this podcast, we speak with Dr Doyle about her new book coming out in October 2017, a world-first analysing Gauchet’s early writings to the present day. Entitled 'Marcel Gauchet’s Loss of Common Purpose: Imaginary Islam and the Crisis of European Democracy’ it synthesises her three main research projects, offering an analysis that provides a context with which to understand the nature of today’s issues, crises and phenomena.

Building on Gauchet’s argument on the crisis unfolding in Europe, Dr Doyle elucidates the underlying pathology and provides a new analysis on the risk of ‘co-radicalisation’, much of which is relevant to other Western countries. And in questioning other more dominant theories, Dr Doyle brings to light the new investigations into the symbolic structures of social life, the role of imagination and the possibility of reimagining – particularly with the future generations.

For more information on doing a higher degree by research, visit https://arts.monash.edu/graduate-research