American Political Thought: Summer 2020 Issue

The Tocsin of Liberty

American Political Thought Journal: Summer 2020 Issue

 

American Political Thought: A Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture, has recently published its Summer 2020 issue, which includes pieces by JMC faculty partner Rogers Smith and fellows Bernard Dobski, Gregory Koutnik, James Patterson, and Joshua Lynn.

 


 

>> Table of Contents <<

Articles:

  1. Blasting Reproach and All-Pervading Light: Frederick Douglass’s Aspirational American Exceptionalism,” Lucy Williams
  2. Orestes Brownson on the Democratic Principle and the Fourteenth Amendment,” Elliot Bartky and Stephen Clouse
  3. “The Gospel of Joan: Statesmanship and Providential Politics in Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,” Bernard J. Dobski

Review Essays:

  1. Islands in the Churning Stream: Analyzing Xenophobia and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century,” Rogers M. Smith
  2. The Closing of the American Constitutional Imagination,” Alan Gibson

Book Reviews:

  1. The Force of Nonviolence: The Ethical in the Political, by Judith Butler,” Tamara Metz
  2. Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy, by Nadia Urbinati,” Charles Postel
  3. This Land Is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth, by Jedediah Purdy,” Gregory Koutnik
  4. In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy, by Katrina Forrester,” Alex Sager
  5. The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God, by Eric Nelson,” James M. Patterson
  6. Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity, by Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes,” George Hawley
  7. Legal Realisms: The American Novel under Reconstruction, by Christine Holbo,” David Sumner
  8. Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866–1896, by Charles Postel,” Tom Mertes
  9. Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History, by Gillis J. Harp,” Joshua A. Lynn

 


 

The Gospel of Joan: Statesmanship and Providential Politics in Mark Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Bernard J. Dobski

“In his preface to Connecticut Yankee, Mark Twain declares that he will settle the issue of the divine right of kings in his next novel. That next novel is Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. In a work that he called his “best,” Twain shows the difficulties besetting any effort to offer a rational justification of providential politics, such as is implied in the practice of the divine right of kings. And yet it prompts the reader to wonder if religious believers don’t also demand a church that understands its divine mission to consist in shaping the earthly lives of its adherents in terms they can understand. Twain’s Joan can exploit this particular difficulty because she locates its source in the human hope for a cosmic order upheld by a deity capable of correcting any evidence in nature, morality, or politics that might call such hoped-for order into question.”

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Bernard DobskiBernard Dobski is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Assumption College, where he teaches courses in political philosophy and foreign policy. He is the author of several articles on Shakespeare and ancient Greek political thought, among other topics.

Professor Dobski is a JMC fellow.

Learn more about Bernard Dobski >>

 


 

Islands in the Churning Stream: Analyzing Xenophobia and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century,” Rogers M. Smith

“Erica Lee’s America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States provides a valuable overview of opposition to immigration from the nation’s colonial era to the present. James Lindley Wilson’s Democratic Equality articulates a fresh conceptual basis for equal citizenship and develops its implications for American democratic institutions. Both make enduring contributions. Both share the limitation of not addressing whether to sustain or transform the modern system of bounded nation-states.”

Click here to read the review essay >>

 


 

Rogers SmithRogers Smith is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He centers his research on constitutional law, American political thought, and modern legal and political theory, with special interests in questions of citizenship, race, ethnicity and gender. He was elected as an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow in 2004, a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2011, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2016. Professor Smith was also voted President-Elect of the American Political Science Association for 2017-2018, and served as President of the American Political Science Association from 2018-2019.

Professor Smith is a JMC faculty partner.

Learn more about Rogers Smith >>

 


 

This Land Is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth, by Jedediah Purdy,” Gregory Koutnik

Gregory Koutnik reviews This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth, by Jedediah Purdy, which examines ecology, social justice, and how America’s land ‘holds people both together and apart.'”

Click here to read the review >>

 


 

Gregory KoutnikGregory Koutnik is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental Studies at Hamilton College. He specializes in political theory and American politics and his research explores the intersection of environmental politics, theories of political economy, and American political thought. Koutnik is especially interested in the idea of home and its rich resonances in environmental issues. His undergraduate teaching earned him the Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student in 2019 as well as the Rubenstein Award in Political Science in 2016.

Koutnik is a JMC fellow.

Learn more about Gregory Koutnik >>

 


 

The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God, by Eric Nelson,” James M. Patterson

James Patterson reviews Eric Nelson’s The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God, which examines the connection between theology and political philosophy.

Click here to read the review >>

 


 

James PattersonJames Patterson is an Associate Professor of Politics at Ave Maria University. His areas of research include race, religion, and American political development. He has published academic work on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, and biblical narratives in American political rhetoric, and he has published more popular essays and book reviews for Modern Age, Society, Library of Law and Liberty, and Public Discourse. In 2019, the University of Pennsylvania Press published his first book, Religion in the Public Square: Sheen, King, and Falwell. This book examines how very different religious leaders sought to influence national politics by preaching their interpretation of American political foundations. His next research project examines the religious assumptions beneath contemporary social science methodology.

Professor Patterson is a JMC fellow.

Learn more about James Patterson >>

 


 

Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History, by Gillis J. Harp,” Joshua A. Lynn

Joshua A. Lynn reviews Protestants and American Conservatism by Gillis J. Harp, which explores the role of Protestantism in American conservatism.

Click here to read the review >>

 


 

Joshua LynnJoshua Lynn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at Eastern Kentucky University and has previously taught at Yale University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He studies nineteenth-century politics, culture, and political thought in the United States. His research focuses on the intersection of political culture with constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. Professor Lynn is also an historian of American conservatism. He is currently working on his second book, The Black Douglass and the White Douglas: Embodying Race, Manhood, and Democracy in Civil War America. It will examine the long-running feud between Frederick Douglass and Stephen A. Douglas and their competing conceptions of race, gender, and democracy.

Professor Lynn is a JMC fellow.

Learn more about Joshua Lynn >>

 


 

American Political Thought journal coverAmerican Political Thought: A Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture is a JMC supported journal that bridges the gap between historical, empirical, and theoretical research. It is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the study of American political thought. Interdisciplinary in scope, APT features research by political scientists, historians, literary scholars, economists, and philosophers who study the foundation of the American political tradition. Research explores key political concepts such as democracy, constitutionalism, equality, liberty, citizenship, political identity, and the role of the state.

Click here to learn more about American Political Thought >>

 


 

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