American Political Thought

Jonathan Keller is Assistant Professor of Government at Manhattan College. His research is on American political thought, American political development and religion in American politics. Alex Zamalin is Director of the African American Studies Program and Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Detroit Mercy. He has written essays on topics such as politics and literature, ethics, social justice, psychoanalysis and race, and race and American politics.

'Bringing together an impressive group of scholars, Keller and Zamalin have edited a timely and essential book that elevates several underappreciated writers and thinkers to their rightful place in the history of American political thought. They also make a persuasive case that only by including the ideas of the marginalized--particularly African-Americans, feminists, radicals, and conservatives--can we truly understand the intellectual soul of America.' - Robert J. Lacey, Iona College, author of Pragmatic Conservatism: Edmund Burke and His American Heirs'Far too many scholars still think of American political thought as a series of variations on classical liberalism and civic republicanism. Jonathan Keller and Alex Zamalin’s American Political Thought: An Alternative View shows us how much more lively the picture really is. Bringing figures such as David Walker, George Fitzhugh, Emma Goldman, and Audre Lorde into the foreground, the book illustrates how radical and conservative, feminist and African American thinkers offered strikingly oppositional visions of the future. This collection remaps American political thought in a most productive way.' - Jack Turner, author of Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America

• Table of ContentsList of ContributorsIntroduction: American Political Thought: An Alternative ViewJonathan Keller and Alex ZamalinSection I: African-American and Feminist Political Thought Chapter1: African American Political Thought, Democracy and FreedomAlex ZamalinChapter 2: Culture, Race, and Sovereignty: Problems in Contemporary Black ThoughtUtz McKnightChapter 3: Audre Lorde and the Poetics of Love In the Movement for Black LivesLaura GrattanChapter 4: Against Nostalgia: The Political Theory of Ida B. WellsJill LockeChapter 5: Revolutionary Pasts and Transnational Futures: "Home Lessons" from U.S. Radical and Third World Feminisms Jocelyn M. BoryczkaSection II: Radical American Political Thought Chapter 6: The Dispossession of the Public and the "Common Benefits" Clause: Working Against Neoliberal Oligarchy through U.S. State ConstitutionsShannon MariottiChapter 7: John Dewey and the Geography of PowerJason KosnoskiChapter 8: Counter-Patriotism and American Radical Politics Maxwell BurkeySection III: Conservative Political Thought Chapter 9: An Alternative Tradition in Conservative Political EconomyPeter KoloziChapter 10: A Rich Tapestry: Varieties of Conservative JurisprudenceDavid G. LeitchChapter 11: The Christian Right and the American Biblical TraditionJonathan Keller