‘The  Skinner  Society’.  ‘History of Political Thought’. Explanation is needed for anyone who has not had the joy of studying these high-brow History, PPSIS or Philosophy papers.

For the rest of us, ‘Political Thought’ is almost the philosophy of politics. It means reading Machiavelli and trying to understand him in his context, understand why he thought like he did and who influenced him as opposed to simply learning his theories.

The founders of the society, Daniel Isenberg and Zami Majuqwana, are keen to stress that this is different to any other academic society bringing in speakers a few times a term.

Registered as a university society only last summer, the launch party at the Union managed to attract 300 people. Impressive, but maybe understandable when you learn that this launch involved a four- person panel debate entitled ‘Political Thought: The State of Play’.

This is where the ‘Skinner’ comes in. Quentin Skinner is one of the most pre-eminent scholars in the field of Political Thought. A former Regius Professor of Modern History here at Cambridge, he helped to found ‘The Cambridge School’; an entirely new way of looking at Political Thought, which now acts as the framework through which the topic is studied. Oh yeah, and he’s the patron of the society.

In the future, The Skinner Society plans to hold two panel debates per term, having interactive discussions between speakers and attendees. No confirmations yet, but Zami confesses they would love to have Shami Chakrabarti “because she’s always in Cambridge anyway!”

Also lined up will be ‘revision sessions’ in Easter, to help students along when the reading gets too dense. The founders are keen to emphasise that The Skinner Society isn’t just about abstract theories; they want to make things more interesting by using modern political issues to explain those theories. And they have a Facebook group; join it.