Susan McWilliams
Biographic Data
| ID | 5636381 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan McWilliams |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan |
| FAMILY NAME | McWilliams |
| SIGNATURE | MCWILLIAMS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pomona College |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 23 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Beyond Fear and Ambition
"Beyond Fear and Ambition: Adventures with Peter Augustine Lawler." Perspectives on Political Science, 47(1), pp. 2–3
On the Faiths of (and in) Our Fathers
Creative Writing and the Study of Politics
Creative writing is not part of professional training in political science. Scholars in other fields, though, testify to the benefits of creative writing assignments, and my experiences teaching an undergraduate course on Politics and Literature suggest that there may be value in adding creative writing into certain political science courses. As with other forms of non-academic writing that political scientists identify as enriching, creative wri…
Democracy in Justice Kennedy's America
Justice Anthony Kennedy cites Alexis de Tocqueville in support of the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. But Kennedy's citation leaves much out of Tocqueville's original text. Looking at what Kennedy erases in his quotation of Tocqueville indicates some of the broader cultural and historic erasures that are present in the Obergefell decision (and in the Supreme Court's latter-day treatment of marriage and the family in general). Standing O…
Teaching Political Theory as a Vocation
My father studied political science at Berkeley during the 1950s, first as an undergraduate and then, after a brief stint in the Army, as a graduate student. To hear Dad tell it, to have been in Berkeley in the 1950s was to have been in an intellectually and politically transformative place—a place far more intellectually and politically transformative than even the Berkeley of the '60s, feted though that decade at that university has been.1For m…
Briefs
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Finding Foundings
At least in the American case, the surest way to disenthrall ourselves of a disabling founder worship is to more fully embrace the founders. This essay uses the case of Fabius—the pen name of the under-studied American founder John Dickinson—to show how many resources there are for political reform, rebellion, and reconstitution within the American founding. It thus argues that we need not imagine revolution as the only remedy to the great ills t…
The Democratic Syllabus
The ideal of the “democratic classroom” has been discussed in educational circles for several years. This article answers the question of whether there are specific advantages to be derived from a democratization of the political science classroom, especially one in which democracy itself is a focus of study. Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process? The author approached t…
The Tragedy in American Political Thought
I argue that, especially if we want to consider what the study of American political thought has to offer the study of American political development, we must look at the use that American political thought makes of literature. Ultimately, I argue, American political thought tempers American political development with a sense of tragedy
Promotions
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Hybridity in Herodotus
Scholarly interest in hybridity has focused largely on the present and recent past. Yet, one of the great theorists of hybridity is an ancient one: Herodotus. By describing a globe in motion—the motion of people across borders and through time—Herodotus draws a picture of a world that brings the hybrid to the fore. He thinks seriously about how we should regard diversity in light of global hybridity. Reading Herodotus as a theorist of the hybrid …
The Liberal Arts and the Arts of Liberty
The idea of the liberal arts is oft-misunderstood and oft-abused in contemporary society. In this panel talk, Susan McWilliams (professor of politics at Pomona College) and Linfield College student Pedro Graterol explain why the liberal arts matter to them. Graterol argues academia exists "to defeat the shadows of the world and lead the way for society." McWilliams discusses why liberal arts colleges are special and how to convey their importance…
Ahab, American
Despite common portrayals of Ahab as beyond the pale of common humanity, Melville offers much reason in Moby-Dick to regard Ahab as a reflection of ordinary American political life. Two of Ahab's most definitive characteristics—his isolation and his desire for domination—do not differentiate him from the other characters in the book but rather underscore how much he is like them. Among the Pequod 's crew in particular, those traits are the rule r…
Tocqueville and His America
Journal Article Tocqueville and His America: A Darker Horizon by Arthur Kaledin Get access Tocqueville and His America: A Darker Horizon by Arthur Kaledin. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2011. 440 pp. $45.00. Susan McWilliams Susan McWilliams Pomona College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 127, Issue 3, Fall 2012, Pages 495–496, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.…
A Pilgrimage to the Disneyland of Faith
As part of a course considering “American Democracy in Theory and Practice,” we took 36 students to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. During that visit, students observed a community that seeks self-sufficiency and yet proves to be simultaneously responsive to and reflective of American democracy more broadly. Specifically, in a few short hours, they were able to see the virtues of civic association, the difficulty of re…
Coming in the Next Issue
A preview of some of the articles that will be published in the April issue
Journeys to the Other Shore
Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge. By Roxanne L. Euben. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 330p. $29.95. Travel narratives, as Mikhail Bakhtin once noted, have a dialogic quality. Putting the unfamiliar into conversation with the familiar, they have the capacity to deepen our understanding of each. Travelers themselves have a third voice in this exchange, at times standing in each culture b…
Democratic Faithand Democratic Illusions
Patrick Deneen argues in Democratic Faith that Americans turn to the recognition of human humility in a way that is consonant with traditional religious faith. But to ask Americans to embrace a more humble understanding of themselves is a difficult task, even if that understanding accords more closely with truth of human existence. In a contemporary American culture that is awash in unreality, even churches have adopted language that suggests an …
Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933–2005)
Though his interests and writing spanned the field of political science, McWilliams had a particular ear for the music of American political life, and it was to articulating the notes of that song that he dedicated most of his energy.His first major work, The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973), for which he was awarded the National Historical Society Prize, sounded the themes that would become his refrain.In American political history, modern l…
Thinking Sociologically
In Focus … Census 2000
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Knowledge and Pedagogy
Theoretical Issues: The Possibility of Synthesis The Sociology of Language and Code Theory Schooling, Curriculum, and Pedagogic Practice Applications to and Influences on Educational and Social Research
Solidarity and Hierarchy in Cross‐Sex Friendships
The gender dynamics of cross‐sex friendships provide information about two fundamental aspects of all social relationships: solidarity and hierarchy. This article analyzes how gender stereotypes activated in cross‐sex friendships produce interpretations of behavior that, in turn, affect the solidarity, hierarchy, and ultimate viability of cross‐sex friendships. Given that females' behaviors are more likely to be interpreted in terms of gender ste…
Solidarity and Hierarchy in Cross‐Sex Friendships
The gender dynamics of cross‐sex friendships provide information about two fundamental aspects of all social relationships: solidarity and hierarchy. This article analyzes how gender stereotypes activated in cross‐sex friendships produce interpretations of behavior that, in turn, affect the solidarity, hierarchy, and ultimate viability of cross‐sex friendships. Given that females' behaviors are more likely to be interpreted in terms of gender ste…
Teaching Political Theory as a Vocation
My father studied political science at Berkeley during the 1950s, first as an undergraduate and then, after a brief stint in the Army, as a graduate student. To hear Dad tell it, to have been in Berkeley in the 1950s was to have been in an intellectually and politically transformative place—a place far more intellectually and politically transformative than even the Berkeley of the '60s, feted though that decade at that university has been.1For m…
Hybridity in Herodotus
Scholarly interest in hybridity has focused largely on the present and recent past. Yet, one of the great theorists of hybridity is an ancient one: Herodotus. By describing a globe in motion—the motion of people across borders and through time—Herodotus draws a picture of a world that brings the hybrid to the fore. He thinks seriously about how we should regard diversity in light of global hybridity. Reading Herodotus as a theorist of the hybrid …
Finding Foundings
At least in the American case, the surest way to disenthrall ourselves of a disabling founder worship is to more fully embrace the founders. This essay uses the case of Fabius—the pen name of the under-studied American founder John Dickinson—to show how many resources there are for political reform, rebellion, and reconstitution within the American founding. It thus argues that we need not imagine revolution as the only remedy to the great ills t…
The Tragedy in American Political Thought
I argue that, especially if we want to consider what the study of American political thought has to offer the study of American political development, we must look at the use that American political thought makes of literature. Ultimately, I argue, American political thought tempers American political development with a sense of tragedy
Journeys to the Other Shore
Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge. By Roxanne L. Euben. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 330p. $29.95. Travel narratives, as Mikhail Bakhtin once noted, have a dialogic quality. Putting the unfamiliar into conversation with the familiar, they have the capacity to deepen our understanding of each. Travelers themselves have a third voice in this exchange, at times standing in each culture b…
The Democratic Syllabus
The ideal of the “democratic classroom” has been discussed in educational circles for several years. This article answers the question of whether there are specific advantages to be derived from a democratization of the political science classroom, especially one in which democracy itself is a focus of study. Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process? The author approached t…
A Pilgrimage to the Disneyland of Faith
As part of a course considering “American Democracy in Theory and Practice,” we took 36 students to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. During that visit, students observed a community that seeks self-sufficiency and yet proves to be simultaneously responsive to and reflective of American democracy more broadly. Specifically, in a few short hours, they were able to see the virtues of civic association, the difficulty of re…
Solidarity and Hierarchy in Cross‐Sex Friendships
The gender dynamics of cross‐sex friendships provide information about two fundamental aspects of all social relationships: solidarity and hierarchy. This article analyzes how gender stereotypes activated in cross‐sex friendships produce interpretations of behavior that, in turn, affect the solidarity, hierarchy, and ultimate viability of cross‐sex friendships. Given that females' behaviors are more likely to be interpreted in terms of gender ste…
Knowledge and Pedagogy
Theoretical Issues: The Possibility of Synthesis The Sociology of Language and Code Theory Schooling, Curriculum, and Pedagogic Practice Applications to and Influences on Educational and Social Research
In Focus … Census 2000
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Thinking Sociologically
Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933–2005)
Though his interests and writing spanned the field of political science, McWilliams had a particular ear for the music of American political life, and it was to articulating the notes of that song that he dedicated most of his energy.His first major work, The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973), for which he was awarded the National Historical Society Prize, sounded the themes that would become his refrain.In American political history, modern l…
Journeys to the Other Shore
Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge. By Roxanne L. Euben. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 330p. $29.95. Travel narratives, as Mikhail Bakhtin once noted, have a dialogic quality. Putting the unfamiliar into conversation with the familiar, they have the capacity to deepen our understanding of each. Travelers themselves have a third voice in this exchange, at times standing in each culture b…
Democratic Faithand Democratic Illusions
Patrick Deneen argues in Democratic Faith that Americans turn to the recognition of human humility in a way that is consonant with traditional religious faith. But to ask Americans to embrace a more humble understanding of themselves is a difficult task, even if that understanding accords more closely with truth of human existence. In a contemporary American culture that is awash in unreality, even churches have adopted language that suggests an …
A Pilgrimage to the Disneyland of Faith
As part of a course considering “American Democracy in Theory and Practice,” we took 36 students to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. During that visit, students observed a community that seeks self-sufficiency and yet proves to be simultaneously responsive to and reflective of American democracy more broadly. Specifically, in a few short hours, they were able to see the virtues of civic association, the difficulty of re…
Coming in the Next Issue
A preview of some of the articles that will be published in the April issue
Ahab, American
Despite common portrayals of Ahab as beyond the pale of common humanity, Melville offers much reason in Moby-Dick to regard Ahab as a reflection of ordinary American political life. Two of Ahab's most definitive characteristics—his isolation and his desire for domination—do not differentiate him from the other characters in the book but rather underscore how much he is like them. Among the Pequod 's crew in particular, those traits are the rule r…
Tocqueville and His America
Journal Article Tocqueville and His America: A Darker Horizon by Arthur Kaledin Get access Tocqueville and His America: A Darker Horizon by Arthur Kaledin. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2011. 440 pp. $45.00. Susan McWilliams Susan McWilliams Pomona College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 127, Issue 3, Fall 2012, Pages 495–496, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.…
Hybridity in Herodotus
Scholarly interest in hybridity has focused largely on the present and recent past. Yet, one of the great theorists of hybridity is an ancient one: Herodotus. By describing a globe in motion—the motion of people across borders and through time—Herodotus draws a picture of a world that brings the hybrid to the fore. He thinks seriously about how we should regard diversity in light of global hybridity. Reading Herodotus as a theorist of the hybrid …
The Liberal Arts and the Arts of Liberty
The idea of the liberal arts is oft-misunderstood and oft-abused in contemporary society. In this panel talk, Susan McWilliams (professor of politics at Pomona College) and Linfield College student Pedro Graterol explain why the liberal arts matter to them. Graterol argues academia exists "to defeat the shadows of the world and lead the way for society." McWilliams discusses why liberal arts colleges are special and how to convey their importance…
The Tragedy in American Political Thought
I argue that, especially if we want to consider what the study of American political thought has to offer the study of American political development, we must look at the use that American political thought makes of literature. Ultimately, I argue, American political thought tempers American political development with a sense of tragedy
Promotions
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Teaching Political Theory as a Vocation
My father studied political science at Berkeley during the 1950s, first as an undergraduate and then, after a brief stint in the Army, as a graduate student. To hear Dad tell it, to have been in Berkeley in the 1950s was to have been in an intellectually and politically transformative place—a place far more intellectually and politically transformative than even the Berkeley of the '60s, feted though that decade at that university has been.1For m…
Briefs
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Finding Foundings
At least in the American case, the surest way to disenthrall ourselves of a disabling founder worship is to more fully embrace the founders. This essay uses the case of Fabius—the pen name of the under-studied American founder John Dickinson—to show how many resources there are for political reform, rebellion, and reconstitution within the American founding. It thus argues that we need not imagine revolution as the only remedy to the great ills t…
The Democratic Syllabus
The ideal of the “democratic classroom” has been discussed in educational circles for several years. This article answers the question of whether there are specific advantages to be derived from a democratization of the political science classroom, especially one in which democracy itself is a focus of study. Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process? The author approached t…
Democracy in Justice Kennedy's America
Justice Anthony Kennedy cites Alexis de Tocqueville in support of the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. But Kennedy's citation leaves much out of Tocqueville's original text. Looking at what Kennedy erases in his quotation of Tocqueville indicates some of the broader cultural and historic erasures that are present in the Obergefell decision (and in the Supreme Court's latter-day treatment of marriage and the family in general). Standing O…
On the Faiths of (and in) Our Fathers
Creative Writing and the Study of Politics
Creative writing is not part of professional training in political science. Scholars in other fields, though, testify to the benefits of creative writing assignments, and my experiences teaching an undergraduate course on Politics and Literature suggest that there may be value in adding creative writing into certain political science courses. As with other forms of non-academic writing that political scientists identify as enriching, creative wri…
Beyond Fear and Ambition
"Beyond Fear and Ambition: Adventures with Peter Augustine Lawler." Perspectives on Political Science, 47(1), pp. 2–3
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (7 works) · Computer Science (7 works)