The canon of political theory.

One of my ambitions as a political theorist is to publish on each theorist in the canon of political theory.

Some people want to end poverty, bring comfort and joy to all peoples, and invent a cure for cancer and the common cold. Me, I want to teach political theory and go home. One of my ambitions as a political theorist is to publish on each theorist in the canon of political theory. While some of my kind (theorists) concentrate on a single idea or expositor I have always prided myself on versatility and flexibility, traits despised by some. I revel in that. I say flexible because over the years I have adapted my theorist’s perspective to teach applied materials like ethics and leadership, drawing on political theory as a base and reference point in so doing. I say versatile because I have always focussed my teaching on the needs of the students and not on my research program. Another trait despised by some. So I have taught across the waterfront from Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, to John Stuart Mill, as well as Antiphon, Xenophon, Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Alexis de Tocqueville.
How have I done on my publishing ambition? I thought it was time to take stock, and I love sharing. I also want to see how a table goes into the blog, if goes it does. It didn’t go, so I Snagged it and converted it into a jpeg.

Nearly all of these pieces were first seminar and conference papers. Some are reprints of early publications. I did not count any of the newspaper pieces I have published but I will sometime. There are some gaps, notably with John Stuart Mill. Yet I find his work fascinating. Hmmm.