James Panton is a politics tutor at St John’s College, University of Oxford, and co-founder of the radical civil liberties campaigning group the Manifesto Club.

James researches and teaches 20th century intellectual history, political theory and political sociology. His work focuses on ideas of politics, democracy and rights. His doctoral research investigates the transformation of the meaning of politics in relation to public and private life in post World War II British and American politics. He is currently working on a project which looks at the political elites’ attitude to political apathy in Britain and America in the 1950s and the 1990s. In July 2009 James was given a Teaching Excellence Award by the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxford, for ‘outstanding teaching and commitment to teaching’.

In 2006 James was a co-founder of PROTest, the pro animal research campaign in support of the Oxford University bio-medical research facility. At the Manifesto Club he organises press and campaigns, and convenes the clubs regular speaker meetings and ‘club nights’.

James has written a number of academic articles on politics, education and intellectual culture, and is co-editor of the book Science versus Superstition: the Case for a New Scientific Enlightenment (Policy Exchange and the University of Buckingham Press, 2006).

James regularly writes on issues around politics, education, intellectual life and animal rights and civil liberties, and he regularly takes part in television and radio discussions on these and other themes.