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Elena Yi-Jia Zeng specializes in modern political theory and European intellectual history. Her research addresses the epistemological and institutional factors that give rise to liberalism. In pursuing this line of inquiry, she investigates the role of skepticism in modern moral and political thought, focusing on Britain, France, and Germany. Apart from canonical thinkers, Elena is also interested in leading cultural figures, such as Brahms, whose lives embody liberal ideas and reconstruct the experiences and meanings of living in the age of liberalism. Her works have been published in peer-reviewed history, politics, and philosophy journals. She is currently working on a monograph titled 'Politics of Belief: Enlightenment and Skepticism', which debates economic and civilizational stagnation during the time of the Physiocrats and the Austrian School. Elena was elected an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2025, and she spent a year as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Political Theory at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. She obtained her PhD, which won the Prince Consort Prize and the Seeley Medal for the best dissertation in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 2024.
Requirements are consistent across King's Business School and Social Science & Public Policy departments for standard Master's entries.