ABSTRACT
This book can then be seen as the one in the series dealing with the writing of International Relations (IR) in a period where the image of master (not to speak of father) has become problematic. Therefore we address figures of thought-an ambivalent phrase, which may refer to patterns of projects in the academic landscape, or to the individual figures who after all move around there. The resistance to our original title was not accidental. Ours is a time of crisis for images of supreme authors mastering not only their own work but also a whole discipline. That something is in crisis, however, should hardly make it uninteresting. To the extent that something like persons or authors-or persons aspiring to be authors-is still around even in IR, how do they operate?
