Kevin Slack
- Kendall 105
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— Kevin SlackIn American political thought, Hillsdale offers, in my opinion, the best selection of classes anywhere.
Faculty Information
Additional Faculty Information for Kevin Slack
Education
B.A. in History, Indiana University, 1999
M.A. in Political Science, University of California–Davis, 2003
M.A. in Political Theory, University of Dallas, 2006
Ph.D. in Politics, University of Dallas, 2009
Publications
Books:
Benjamin Franklin, Natural Right, and the Art of Virtue (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2017).
Articles:
“Benjamin Franklin’s Metaphysical Essays and the Virtue of Humility,” American Political Thought 2, No. 1 (Spring 2013): 31-61.
“On the Sources and Authorship of ‘A Letter From Father Abraham to His Beloved Son,’” New England Quarterly 86, No. 3 (September 2013): 467-87.
“On the Origins and Intention of Benjamin Franklin’s ‘On the Providence of God in the Government of the World,’” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 137, No. 4 (October 2013): 345-79.
“The False Genealogies of Neo-Progressivism,” Anamnesis (August 2013).
“Liberalism Radicalized: The Sexual Revolution, Multiculturalism, and the Rise of Identity Politics,” Heritage First Principles Series, No. 46 (2013).
“Review: Jessica Choppin Roney. Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia,” American Political Thought 5, No. 2 (Spring 2016): 326-29.
“Benjamin Franklin’s Last Prayer,” The American Thinker, September 17, 2017.
“A Foucauldian Study of Spanish Colonialism,” The Latin Americanist 62, Iss. 3 (September 2018): 433-457.
“Thomas Hobbes and the Defense of Liberalism,” in Trump and Political Philosophy: Leadership, Statesmanship, and Tyranny, ed. Marc Sable and Angel Jaramillo Torres (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2018): 107-30.
“Machiavelli’s Thoughts on Venice,” Ramify, Symposium in Honor of Leo Paul de Alvarez (Fall 2019): 51-66.
“Review: Thomas Jefferson and the Science of Republican Government: A Political Biography of Notes on the State of Virginia, by Dustin Gish and Daniel Klinghard,” H-FedHist (June 2019).
“Progressivism’s Aristocratic Fantasies: replying to David Azerrad,” The American Mind, April 22, 2019.
“Sontag Sontag Was Not the Sole Author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist,” VoegelinView (May 2020).
“Benjamin Franklin and the Reasonableness of Christianity,” Church History 90, Iss. 1 (March 2021): 68-97.
Courses Taught
POL 804: Herbert Marcuse
POL 804: Late Scholastic Property Law in 16th Century Mesoamerica
POL 597: Empire, Nationalism, Republicanism
POL 514: Hegel
POL 416/514: Idealism and Historicism: Kant and Hegel
POL 416: 20th-21st Century Political Philosophy
POL 416: Globalism
POL 416: Political theory in Action: Rawls to the Present
POL 405/747: American Colonial Thought
POL 405/520: Neoliberalism and Identity Politics
POL 405/752: 1950s Midcentury Liberalism and 1960s Progressivism
POL 403: American Progressivism
POL 308: Public Policy
POL 220: American Foreign Policy
POL 214/605: Modern Political Philosophy II: Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche
POL 101: The U.S. Constitution
Biography
My interest in political theory began with several undergraduate classes at Indiana University, South Bend. In those classes we asked broad questions about right and justice, constitutional and governmental structure, and how those concepts and institutions have been understood and implemented in the American system. I began my graduate studies in political science at the University of California, Davis, and, after completing a master’s degree, I transferred out of that doctoral program to complete my studies at the University of Dallas, which focused heavily on political philosophy. Thus my own education has given me a broad overview of the various qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of politics.
My two specific areas of interest have been in American political thought: colonial thought, and post-1960s progressivism, or the break between centrist liberals and progressives that often informs our political discourse today.
For students interested in political theory, Hillsdale’s core curriculum provides the opportunity to systematically read and discuss the great books of the Western canon. In American political thought, Hillsdale offers, in my opinion, the best selection of classes anywhere. In the past four years alone, the program has offered courses in every period of American political development, from colonial American thought to postmodernism and the new progressivism. Hillsdale’s theory-centric program is tied to political practice, but it eliminates the subfield system, which is heavily influenced by quantitative methods and often prevents theory students from gaining proficiency in their own field.