Teaching

I teach undergraduate courses in political theory, race and politics, American political science, and research methods.

100-Level: The Moral Basis of Politics

This 100-level course is an introduction to the wide world of political thought. What is just? What is right? What do we owe each other? What is the purpose of politics – of having a government in the first place? How should we respond to seemingly intractable systems of oppression? Students study some of these big questions of political theory, with an emphasis on student-guided course development, critical thinking about the canon, and colonized, racially marginalized, and female thinkers.

200-Level: Racial and Ethnic Politics in the U.S.

Race and ethnicity play undeniably important roles in U.S. politics today, from presidential elections and immigration debates to #BlackLivesMatter and changing demographics. This course analyzes racial and ethnic dynamics from a political science perspective. Students learn the major theories of racial and ethnic politics in the United States as applied to major racial groups, political processes, and policy areas. They make connections between history and contemporary politics by identifying our current political moment within a longer, cyclical history of racial progress followed by white racial backlash. Finally, they explore how social science research questions are developed and answered, and they develop their own research and writing skills.

200-Level: Feminist Political Thought

What is the point of feminism? This course brings an emphasis on the big questions about gender to political science while bringing a specifically political theoretical mode of questioning to gender and sexuality studies. Students evaluate and reshape their own beliefs about feminism and its political demands while reading and discussing feminist theories and writing their own feminist theory. Themes may include feminist epistemology, intersectionality, Black feminisms/womanisms, lesbian and trans feminisms, democratic feminist theory, ecofeminism, Indigenous feminist theory, transnational feminism, feminist theories of work and labor, and anti-pornography feminism. Students will examine feminist political thought as both a practice (what should feminist politics be?) and a methodology (how do we theorize and practice feminist politics?).

200-Level Short Term: Feminist Political Theory (Taylor’s Version)

Taylor Swift is one of the most influential U.S. cultural products consumed so far in the 21st century, a cultural and political lightning rod. This 3.5-week, half-credit course takes up the two questions: what does Taylor Swift’s music and cultural impact have to teach us about politics and feminism in the 21st century, and what do political and feminist theory have to teach us about Taylor Swift’s music and cultural impact? The course addresses the complicated relationship between Taylor Swift (her persona, artistic output, and cultural reception), politics, and feminism. It focuses on topics such as celebrity politics, intersectionality, queer counter-readings, postmodern multiplicity of meaning, and norms of femininity and motherhood. Students engage deeply with theoretical and academic texts and produce theoretically-engaged cultural analysis.

300-Level Seminar: Race and the Right to Vote in the U.S.

Can the hard-won voting rights victories of the Civil Rights Movement be taken for granted? Have we left the age of racially motivated disenfranchisement, or are we in a new era of civil rights violations? In the twenty-first century, new laws and court decisions have changed the relationship between the state and federal governments and made voting rights more tenuous. This course surveys scholarly literature on electoral institutions, racial politics, and access to the ballot in the United States. In consultation with the instructor, students design their own literature review on race and the politics of voting.

Past Courses

100-Level: Introduction to Government in the United States

This course is a broad overview of U.S. political institutions and behavior. I focus on using active learning techniques, like the simulations I developed for the class, to keep students engaged and to help them connect course material to current events. For example, we might discuss public opinion polling biases through a class activity in which students make their own Instagram polls, or analyze federalism through a discussion of Medicaid expansion.

200-Level: Research Methods in Political Science

This undergraduate research methods course brings students through the skills to select a research question, create a literature review, generate hypotheses, find data, select qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, and begin coding using R. Students work on a semester-long research design project on a topic of their choice, preparing them for original research projects such as senior capstones.

200-Level Maymester: The Politics of Memorials: Making and Shaping History

This Maymester seminar focuses on the big questions of “memory studies”: why do humans assign significance to certain objects connected to the dead? What major aesthetic forms have memorials and monuments taken in the 20th and 21st centuries? How do memories of colonialism appear in the politics of memorials? And how has historical preservation grappled with questions of race, power, and inequality? Students delve into these questions through case studies of memorials, from German Holocaust memorials to the #RhodesMustFall movement and Confederate statues.