Barry Cooper 
University of Calgary

Barry Cooper, a fourth generation Albertan, was educated at Shawnigan Lake School, the University of British Columbia and Duke University, where he received his doctorate in 1969.  He taught at Bishop's University, McGill, and York University before coming to the University of Calgary in 1981.  For the past twenty-five years he has studied western political philosophy, both classical and contemporary.  Much of his teaching has focussed on Greek political philosophy whereas his publications have been chiefly in the area of contemporary French and German political philosophy.  Over the years he has spent considerable time in both countries, teaching and doing research. 

Cooper's other area of continuing interest has been Canadian politics and public policy.  Here he has brought the insights of political philosophers to bear on contemporary issues, from the place of technology and the media in Canada to the on-going debate over the constitutional status of Quebec. 

Cooper's publications reflect the dual focus of his work.  He has translated three books from French and assisted in the translation of three others from German.  He has written books on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault and an influential French interpretation of the German philosopher, Hegel.  His work on Eric Voegelin, arguably the most important political thinker of the century, has included translations, editing three volumes of his Collected Works, numerous articles and papers, some of which have been collected into a book, a major study of Voegelin's restoration of political science as a science of human order in history, Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science.  He is currently at work on a continuing project, Voegelin Recollected, consisting of interviews of colleagues and pupils of Voegelin, and is preparing a companion volume to the Foundations book. 

A bridge between political philosophy and Canadian politics was provided by Cooper's study of technology, Action Into Nature, which led to his interest in the media, especially television news as an element that shapes the particular configuration of technological consciousness in Canada.  His books on Ralph Klein, most recently, Governing in Post-Deficit Times: Alberta in the Klein Years, as well as the work he has done with David Bercuson on Quebec, on the political importance of public debt, and their newspaper columns in the Calgary Sun, The Globe and Mail, and The Calgary Herald and other papers in the Southam chain, have all addressed contemporary issues of concern to citizens. 

Cooper has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States, India, Australia and China.  He has received numerous on-going research grants from public and private Canadian and American granting agencies.  In addition he has received two major awards, the Konrad Adenauer Award from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, and a Killam Research Fellowship. 

Cooper has served on numerous review committees for Canadian and international publications and for many Canadian and American universities.  He has served for many years on the Alberta Heritage Scholarship Foundation, as well as on SSHRCC adjudication committees, both for Research Grants and for Doctoral Fellowships.  In addition, Cooper has adjudicated applications for the Konrad Adenauer committee of the Royal Society of Canada, for the Donner Canadian Foundation, and for other granting bodies.

He has been an expert witness in several Charter cases pled before the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta and the Federal Court of Canada (Trial Division), and has written major reports for the Law Commission of Canada, the Federal Department of Justice, and the Alberta Department of Agriculture, and several Calgary law firms.

Along with Dr. Lydia Miljan, Cooper has assisted in the establishment of the Calgary office of the internationally known Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based, market-oriented think tank.  As part of his work with the Fraser Institute he has delivered numerous talks and assisted in fund-raising across the prairie west, British Columbia, and Toronto.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, and the Pennask Lake Fishing and Game Club.