Dissertation:
Regime Agnosticism: Tacitus on the Nature of Republics and the Growth of Savagery
Does regime type matter for republican politics? We might be tempted to think the answer is a simple "yes," and point to the mixed regime, yet the question is more complicated than it appears at first glance. In my dissertation, I turn to the Roman historian Tacitus to help answer this question of regime types. I argue that Tacitus offers a "regime agnostic" political philosophy, where political outcomes are more the product of mental states like virtues, vices, and emotions than institutions and legal arrangements. To develop this argument, I engage in a close reading of Tacitus's writings that reveals his use of Stoic themes to ground his regime agnostic political philosophy. I use this reading to challenge the overly legalistic focus of contemporary republican theorists, to change how we understand the Romans as part of the republican tradition, and to suggest that even good institutions are insufficient for republican politics.
Regime Agnosticism: Tacitus on the Nature of Republics and the Growth of Savagery
Does regime type matter for republican politics? We might be tempted to think the answer is a simple "yes," and point to the mixed regime, yet the question is more complicated than it appears at first glance. In my dissertation, I turn to the Roman historian Tacitus to help answer this question of regime types. I argue that Tacitus offers a "regime agnostic" political philosophy, where political outcomes are more the product of mental states like virtues, vices, and emotions than institutions and legal arrangements. To develop this argument, I engage in a close reading of Tacitus's writings that reveals his use of Stoic themes to ground his regime agnostic political philosophy. I use this reading to challenge the overly legalistic focus of contemporary republican theorists, to change how we understand the Romans as part of the republican tradition, and to suggest that even good institutions are insufficient for republican politics.
Publications:
"Dostoyevsky and the Defense of Compassion" (Political Research Quarterly)
Is cruelty a problem for politics? For Hannah Arendt, the answer was no. On her view, a compassionate response towards persons suffering cruelty is best avoided because compassion can only become political by transforming incommunicable individual pain into abstract suffering. At crucial moments in her argument in On Revolution, she cites the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky as an ally. However, I argue that Arendt misrepresents Dostoyevsky. Through a critical examination of his mature novels, I show how suffering is communicable and compassion is political for Dostoyevsky. By attending to this theme in his writings, I argue that Dostoyevsky sheds light on the problem of cruelty in a way that Arendt’s framework cannot. This suggests that he is more at home with theorists like Judith Shklar who “put cruelty first” than with Arendt, although in favoring compassion I argue that he departs from Shklar’s liberalism of fear and offers a more constructive, hopeful political vision.
"Dostoyevsky and the Defense of Compassion" (Political Research Quarterly)
Is cruelty a problem for politics? For Hannah Arendt, the answer was no. On her view, a compassionate response towards persons suffering cruelty is best avoided because compassion can only become political by transforming incommunicable individual pain into abstract suffering. At crucial moments in her argument in On Revolution, she cites the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky as an ally. However, I argue that Arendt misrepresents Dostoyevsky. Through a critical examination of his mature novels, I show how suffering is communicable and compassion is political for Dostoyevsky. By attending to this theme in his writings, I argue that Dostoyevsky sheds light on the problem of cruelty in a way that Arendt’s framework cannot. This suggests that he is more at home with theorists like Judith Shklar who “put cruelty first” than with Arendt, although in favoring compassion I argue that he departs from Shklar’s liberalism of fear and offers a more constructive, hopeful political vision.
Book Reviews and Other Writing:
Review of Roosevelt Montás, Rescuing Socrates (forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Law and Society)
Notes from Under the Stadium (post at The Looking Glass)
Review of Roosevelt Montás, Rescuing Socrates (forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Law and Society)
Notes from Under the Stadium (post at The Looking Glass)
Working Papers:
"Aulus Cossus Revisited: Empire, Memory, and Criticism in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita" (revise and resubmit at Polis)
Scholars often turn to Livy’s famous digression on Aulus Cossus and the spolia opima (4.17-20) to shed light on his larger political inclinations. These readings generally view Livy as either an Augustan (or at least a patriotic Roman) or an apolitical skeptic. Yet neither view, I argue, fully explains the Cossus affair. What is needed is an interpretation that recognizes the political nature of the Cossus digression and its skepticism toward Augustus. Reading the digression this way shows that Livy raises fundamental and critical political questions about Augustus’s regime and his claim to rule. The explanatory power of this lens extends to other episodes as well, specifically the “variant” stories about Romulus’s life, where Livy's discussion of Rome's legendary past cuts through Augustus's propaganda about restoring the republic. Livy's episodes raise a theoretical argument about the nature of despotism, namely, that it seeks to control narratives of the past just as much as it aims for political domination.
"Aulus Cossus Revisited: Empire, Memory, and Criticism in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita" (revise and resubmit at Polis)
Scholars often turn to Livy’s famous digression on Aulus Cossus and the spolia opima (4.17-20) to shed light on his larger political inclinations. These readings generally view Livy as either an Augustan (or at least a patriotic Roman) or an apolitical skeptic. Yet neither view, I argue, fully explains the Cossus affair. What is needed is an interpretation that recognizes the political nature of the Cossus digression and its skepticism toward Augustus. Reading the digression this way shows that Livy raises fundamental and critical political questions about Augustus’s regime and his claim to rule. The explanatory power of this lens extends to other episodes as well, specifically the “variant” stories about Romulus’s life, where Livy's discussion of Rome's legendary past cuts through Augustus's propaganda about restoring the republic. Livy's episodes raise a theoretical argument about the nature of despotism, namely, that it seeks to control narratives of the past just as much as it aims for political domination.
Works in Progress:
Republican Virtues and Imperial Vices: Tacitus’s Non-Institutional Critique of the Roman Principate
Stoic Affection and Imperial Savagery
Regime Agnosticism and the Limits of Neo-Roman Liberty
I am happy to email drafts and discuss them upon request.
Republican Virtues and Imperial Vices: Tacitus’s Non-Institutional Critique of the Roman Principate
Stoic Affection and Imperial Savagery
Regime Agnosticism and the Limits of Neo-Roman Liberty
I am happy to email drafts and discuss them upon request.
