ABSTRACT
Nick Onuf makes a guest appearance in the author's graduate classes at the University of California (UCI), to lecture and lead discussion about language, rule and rules, Constructivism, philosophy of science, and a plethora of related topics. He also gave a terrific series of three seminars on “the problem of the international.” His appearances and lectures are always a great treat for the students, and Nick subsequently finds himself meeting UCI graduate students for coffee or lunch to discuss their research projects and offer advice. Onuf’s concern with the structure of the English language–what he called “syntactical sensibility” in his series of lectures–is not unrelated to his interest in Republicanism or his thought on rules and rule. For Onuf, Republicanism was made possible by the genealogy of Christianity in the west and more specifically by the Protestant Reformation. Onuf specifically focuses on Republicanism rather than Liberalism.
