Timothy Vasko

Timothy Vasko is Assistant Professor of Religion and Human Rights at Barnard College. An historian of international political thought, his work focuses on the intersections between religion, law, and empire in the early modern Americas. He has published essays in History of the Human Sciences, Critical Research on Religion, and Modern Intellectual History. His first book, Making All the World America: Native Information and the Doctrine of Discovery, is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.

Vasko plans to undertake two closely related research projects at the Institute. He will complete a book manuscript entitled The Indigenous: A Genealogy of the Idea. He will also conduct research and writing for his next project, Voices of Reason: Other Enlightenments in the Western Hemisphere. His intellectual interests focus on the legacy of the Enlightenment in the global North, and the implications for the current crisis of morality and legitimacy in modern international politics, particularly surrounding the rights of Indigenous and other non-state peoples.