I was born in 1960 in Cork, Ireland. I am an Irish and British citizen. 

I studied Sociology and Philosophy at University College Cork, graduating in 1982 (B.A.) and in 1984 (M.A).  In 1988 I obtained the PhD in Sociology from the National University of Ireland for a thesis on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. 

In the early 1980s I studied German and had a stipend to study at the Goethe Institute in Freiburg. I was a DAAD doctoral Fellow at Frankfurt University in 1986/1987. In the late 1980s I taught at the Instituto Universitario Orientale in Naples and for a few years in the early 1990s I taught Irish studies at Hannover University.

In 1995 I was offered the position of Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, becoming Reader in 1998, Professor in 2000 and Head of Department from 2002 to 2005.  

From 2007 I was Professor of Sociology and Social & Political Thought at the University of Sussex, Brighton and served as Head of Department and Convenor of The Social and Political Thought Programme. I am now Emeritus Professor Emeritus at Sussex University.

In the course of my career, I taught undergraduate modules in classical and contemporary social theory, a course for doctoral students on the philosophy of social science and supervised a total of 20 PhD students to completion as well as being a mentor of several post-doctoral researchers. 

I was also the UK partner Principal Investigator of four European Commission funded projects and held other smaller EU research grants and participated in various collaborative international research projects. 

I held six month Visiting Professor appointments at York University, Toronto (Autumn 1998); Doshisha University, Kyoto (Spring 2000); Deakin University, Melbourne (Autumn 2006); and University of Barcelona (Spring 2013). I was also visiting professor at the Federal University of Brasilia (Summer 2018); Alberto Hurtado University, Santiago, Chile (May 2022); (virtually) East Normal University, Shanghai (Autumn 2022); and Hamburg University (Winter 2019). I had short visiting appointments at the State University of Tbilisi/Georgia in February 2001 and in May 2002; and the Polish Academy of Science/Central European University, Warsaw (March 2002). Over the course of about 35 years I have given over 240 invited talks in 47 countries.

Since 1998 I have been the Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Theory, a quarterly published by Sage Publications Ltd.

I am interdisciplinary oriented sociologist. My specialist academic field is social and political theory, as well as the history and philosophy of the social sciences. I have published widely on many topics in political and historical sociology, including nationalism, cosmopolitanism, modernity, the European cultural heritage, the Anthropocene.

My publications include sixteen books and thirteen edited volumes and over 60 journal articles as well as more than 80 chapters in edited collections. 

My most recent book is Senses of the Future: Conflicting Ideas of the Future in the World Today (De Gruyter 2024). Other books include Critical Theory and Social Transformation (Routledge, 2020), The Cosmopolitan Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Formations of European Modernity, 2nd edition (Palgrave, 2019), Community 3rd Edition (Routledge 2018), The European Heritage: A Critical Re-Interpretation (Routledge 2018). Google citation index: 22,614 h-index 94

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=c52Dz0AAAAAJ

I have two children, Tristan, born in 1996, and Dario, born in 2013. 

I am now a Spanish resident and living in Barcelona at La Floresta with my wife Aurea and son Dario.

Explore My Intellectual Trajectory.

University of Sussex link here.

My ORCID ID:
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7260-5904