Politics Faculty
Angelia
Means
Ph.D., Harvard University. J.D., Harvard Law School. Taught political theory and public law for fifteen years at Harvard, Dartmouth, and the LSE. Worked for the U.S. Department of Justice and the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Research deals with the bridges between civil and human rights and democratic political theory, especially with the way in which the articulation of minority and women’s rights reiterates, expands, and gives concrete meaning to the idea of universal rights, and with the development of democratic norms and procedures that can accommodate different types of argument while still being committed to consensus. Recent articles, including “Intercultural Political Identity: Are We There Yet?,” “The Rights of Others,” “‘Genocide’ in the Sudan,” “Narrative Argumentation: Arguing with Natives,” and “Kant’s Art of Politics,” have appeared in leading journals. SLC, 2008-
Jessica Blatt
Courses: Contemporary American Politics: The 2008 Election in Context, Racial Politics and Political Thought in Twentieth-Century United States
B.A., University of California-Berkeley. M.A., doctoral candidate, New School for Social Research. Research interests include race and American political thought, the history of the social sciences, and American political development. Recipient of a Mellon summer dissertation fellowship; taught at Hunter College, John Jay College, and Eugene Lang College; recent publication in Ethnic and Racial Studies. SLC, 2007-
David Peritz
Courses: Democracy and Diversity
B.A., Occidental College. D.Phil., Oxford University. Special interests in democracy in conditions of cultural diversity, social complexity and political dispersal, critical social theory, social contract theory, radical democratic thought, and the idea of dispersed but integrated public spheres that create the social and institutional space for broad-based, direct participation in democratic deliberation and decision making; recipient of a Marshal Scholarship; taught at Harvard University, Deep Springs College, and Dartmouth College; visiting scholar at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and the London School of Economics. SLC, 2000-
Elke Zuern
Courses: International Relations: Beyond War, Democratization and Inequality
A.B., Colgate University. M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University. Research interests include the role of social movements in new democracies, institutional and extra- institutional mechanisms of protest, popular responses to poverty and inequality, state-civil society alliances, and the role of violence in processes of democratization. Regional specialization: sub-Saharan Africa; extensive fieldwork in South Africa. Recipient of a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Amherst College and a Lowenstein fellowship; recent articles in Comparative Politics, Politique Africaine, African Affairs, South African Labour Bulletin, Transformation, and African Studies Review. SLC, 2002-