Catalina Carpan
Assistant Professor
Email: Catalina.Carpan@warwick.ac.uk
Room: D1.29
Advice and Feedback Hours:
Tuesday 11:00-12:00
Thursday 14:00-15:00
I joined PAIS in 2014, as PhD student and Associate Tutor. Currently, I am Assistant Professor in Political Theory, 1st year Senior Personal Tutor and the PPL Co-director and Admissions Tutor. Previously, I held an ESRC Early Career Fellowship in PAIS, and a lectureship at the University of Northampton.
Research
My research looks at how the psychology of both dominant and marginalised groups is shaped by policy and institutional structures. For instance, by drawing on Social Psychology, I developed the concept of perception-based harms, which explores how marginalized individuals' interpretations of criminal justice policies can produce costs which often neglected by mainstream normative theory.
Additionally, I introduced the concept of testimonial obfuscation in the epistemic injustice literature, which explains how marginalized groups are ideologically conditioned by prejudiced hearers through distorted testimonial processes. Building on this foundation, my current project brings critical security studies into dialogue with political theory to understand the appeal of dominant group vigilantism and populism as failed attempts to enact Lacanian fantasy and restore ontological security.
Outside academia, I work as freelance researcher and policy consultant on various projects related to racial equity, mis/disinformation and foreign policy.
Teaching
Module Director for PO134: Justice, Democracy and Citizenship
Seminar Tutor for PO301 Issues in Political Theory, PO2E3 Foundations in Political Theory, PO2E2 Topics in Political Theory, PH147 Introduction to Politics, Philosophy and Law.
PhD Supervision
I am happy to supervise projects on:
· Neo-republicanism and virtue ethics
· Social and political epistemology
· Critical Theory (especially Marx, feminism and CRT)
Recent publications
Carpan, C. (2025). Civic Psychological Safety, in Theoria. https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.70038
Carpan, C. (2022). Racial Profiling and Second-Class Citizenship. Political Studies (Online First). https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221099101
Carpan, C. (forthcoming). The Adultification of Black Girls as Unjust Credibility Excess, in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, accepted September 2022.