May 2017
Bottom: (from left to right): Jeong-Hawan Bae, Matthew Mendham, Rob L’Arrivee, Abby Staysa, Kate Bermingham, Veronica Roberts, Karrie Cross, Mark Hoipkemier
Center: Michell Kundmueller, Andrew Hertzoff, Jodi Cockerill Bruhn, Garrett Fitzgerald, Sid Simpson, Mary Shiraef, Theresa Sharp, Catherine Zuckert, Jill Budny, Adam Seagrave, Rebecca McCumbers Flavin, Colleen Mitchell, Faisal Baluch, Catherine Sims Kuiper
Top: Alex Duff, Rob Wyllie, Justin Brophy, Tyler Thomas, Caleb Hamman, Raul Rodriguez, Joe Brutto, Jonathan Gondelman, Jordan Dorney, Jakub Voboril, Matt van Hook, Derek Webb, David Strom, Kevin Cherry, Tyler Moore, Matthew Hartman, Kevin Vance, Zack German
Dissertations – Supervisor
Andrew Hertzoff, Ph.D. (2002): “City, Soul, and Speech in Plato’s Cratylus.” received tenure at California State University in Sacramento in the spring of 2008.
Xavier Marquez, Ph.D. (2006): “Political Knowledge in Plato’s Statesman.” Awarded the Leo Strauss Prize for the Best Dissertation Written in Political Philosophy in 2004-06, by the American Political Science Association, and now holds the equivalent of a tenured position at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.
Kevin Cherry, Ph.D. (2007): “Aristotle’s First Critique: The Eleatic Stranger and the Politics.” Assistant Professor, St. Anselm’s College (2008-10); tenured Associate Professor at the University of Richmond, 2010–
Jill Budny, Ph.D. (2008): “The Education of the Irrational in Plato’s Laws.” Jill is a non-tenure track assistant professor of political science at Beloit College in Wisconsin.
Catherine Borck, Ph.D. (2009): “Becoming Friends in Speech and Deed: Socratic Friendship in the Platonic Dialogues.” Tenure-track assistant professor of political theory, University of Hartford, 2011—18; Lecturer in political science, North Texas University 2018–
Alexander Duff, Ph.D. (2010): “Heidegger’s Paradoxical Politics.” Alex has held postdoctoral fellowships at UND, Boston College, and the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA. He was a visiting professor at Skidmore College, has been a visiting professor at Holy Cross, and accepted a tenure-track position at North Texas University at Denton, beginning fall 2018.
Joshua Bandoch, Ph.D. (2012): “On Political Particularism: De L’Ésprit des lois and the Politics of Statecraft.” Bandoch had a postdoctoral fellowship in the Political Theory Workshop at Brown University from 2012-14, and another at the Jack Miller Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI, 2014-16, before moving to the Institute for Humane Studies to do fundraising in 2016-18. He recently accepted an appointment as a speech-writer for the Secretary of the Air Force, Heather
Wilson.
Faisal Baluch, Ph.D. (2013): “Machiavelli on Liberty, Empire, and Necessity.” Tenure-track, assistant professor, at the College of Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.
Rebecca McCumbers, Ph.D. (2014): “The Battle between the Unarmed Prophets: Savonarola and Machiavelli.” Senior Lecturer in public law at Baylor University 2010—; won the university prize ($10,000) for the professor elected best teacher.
Michelle Kundmueller, Ph.D. (2014): “Following Odysseus Home: An Exploration of the Politics of Honor & Family in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Plato’s Republic.” Tenure track assistant professor of American studies at Christopher Newport University.
Robert L’Arrivée, Ph.D. (2015): “The Roots of Islamic Political Philosophy: A Comparative Study of Al-Farabi’s Virtuous City and Political Regime.” Visiting assistant professor of political science at Colgate University.
Nathan Sawatzky, Ph.D. (2016): “Building Cities, Turning Souls: Necessity in the ‘City in Speech’ of Plato’s Republic.” 2016-17 Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley in Classics & Philosophy. Now seeking work in an NGO.
Tae Hyun Ahn, Ph.D. (2017): “Happiness in Aristotle: Individual, Friends, and the City.” Returned to Korea.
Vince Bagnulo, Ph.D. (2017): “Liberal Virtue and Liberal Vice: Mill, Nietzsche, and Tocqueville on the Problem of Democratic Character.” Instructor, Texas State University.
Jakub Voboril, Ph.D. (2017): “Democratic Political Leadership and Education in Thucydides and Plato.” UND Postdoctoral Fellow 2017; ASU Postdoctoral Fellow 2018-2019.
Jordan Dorney, ABD, “Sage Against the Machine: The Politics of the Deus ex Machina.” Katherine Bermingham, ABD: “Creative Politics: Hannah Arendt and Niccolò Machiavelli on Time, Memory, and the Possibility of (Re-)Birth”
Colleen Mitchell, ABD, “Eternity and the Eternal City: St. Augustine and Machiavelli on Rome”
Dissertation – Committees
Jody Cockerill Bruhn, Ph.D. (2001), “Polity and Cosmogony: A Study of Three Creation Myths,” research analyst with the Library of Parliament, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Ottawa, Canada
Traci Levy, Ph.D. (2002), “Women and Welfare,” tenured associate professor of Political Science at Adelphi University
Heike Cheryl Schotten, Ph.D. (2005), “Nietzsche’s Psychology of the Body,” Tenured associate professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston
Jarrett Carty, Ph.D. (2006): “Machiavelli, Luther, and the Reformation of Politics.” Tenured associate professor in the Honors Program at Concordia University, Montreal
Timothy Dale, Ph.D. (2006): “Democracy beyond Universalism: Identity, Accountability, and Agency in ‘Post-Subjective’ Political Thinking,” moved from a tenure-track position at the University of South Carolina, Spartansburg to become a tenured associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls in 2007
Emma Cohen de Lara, Ph.D. (2007), “The Lawgiver and the Physician: A Model for Reading Plato’s Laws,” tenured professor at Amsterdam University College in the Netherlands.
Jeffrey Church, Ph.D. (2008): “The Problem of the Individual in Hegel and Nietzsche,” tenured associate professor at the University of Houston. APSA Foundations of Political Theory First Book Prize 2012.
Ana Quesada Samuel, Ph.D. (2010), “Montesquieu on Morality and Law. Research scholar at the Witherspoon Foundation, Washinton, D.C.
Sarah Houser, Ph.D. (2010), “Loving Pimlico: Patriotism in the Age of the Cosmopolis,” lecturer, Department of Political Science, American University, Washington, D. C.
Matthew Holbreich, Ph.D. (2011), “Between Sovereignty and Freedom: Tocqueville and the Project of French Liberalism,” postdoctoral fellow at American University 2011-12, has taught political theory part-time at Yeshiva and is a Tech Group Associate at Lowenstein Sandler, having graduated from NYU Law School
James Fetter, Ph.D. (2012), “The Great Man in Politics: Magnanimity in the History of Western Political Thought.” Postdoctoral fellow, Tocqueville Center, UND 2012-14. Attended law school at Ohio State University, and now working as a lawyer for people with disabilities.
Ashleen Menchaca Bagnulo, Ph.D. (2013): “My City before My Soul” Reading the Discourses on Livy as a Retelling of Augustine’s City of God.” Postdoctoral fellow at the Madison Center, Princeton University, 2013-14; postdoctoral fellow in ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, 2014-15; teaching postdoctoral fellowship at Furman University, 2015-16, tenure-track assistant professor at Texas State University in El Paso from 2016-17.
Sarah Spengeman, Ph.D. (2014), “Arendt and Augustine: The Politics of Love,” tenure-track assistant professor of political science at the California community college in San Luis Obispo 2012, resigned 2013, working for an NGO in Washington, D. C.
Shaojin Chai, Ph.D. (2014), “Wang Yang-ming’s Cosmopolitan Vision.” Adjunct instructor of political science in Dubai.
Lori Molinari, Ph.D. (2014), “The Ancient Republics and the Mixed Regime in Montesquieu’s Political Thought,” Tocqueville Postdoctoral Fellow 2014- 16; Heritage Foundation, research assistant 2016-7; postdoctoral fellowship at Clemson University 2017-18.
Joseph Brutto, Ph.D. (2015), “Towards a Politics of Virtue: A Study of the Relationship of Virtue to Political Life.” Postdoctoral Fellow at the Madison Center, Princeton University 2015-16; Lecturer at Christendom College from 2016-17.
Madeline Cronin, Ph.D. (2016), “The Politics of Taste: Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen on the Cultivation of Democratic Judgement.” Predoctoral Teaching Fellow, Loyola University, Baltimore, 2015-16; visiting assistant professor, Santa Clara University 2017-19.
Zachary German, Ph.D. (2017), “Spirit, Statesmanship, and the New Sciences of Politics in Montesquieu, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists,” tenure-track assistant professor in the new school of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University.
Shinkyu Lee, Ph.D. (2017), “Nation-State, Polis, and Republic: Hannah Arendt on Political Associations and Their Inter-Political Relations,” now teaching part-time at Butler University, Indianapolis, IN.
Catherine Sims Kuiper, Ph.D.(2017), “The Nature and Purpose of Political Communities in Suárez and Locke.” Tocqueville Postdoctoral Fellowship, UND, 2017-19.
Matthew Hartman, Ph.D. (2018), “History and Historicism: Strauss, Gadamer, and the Politics of Interpretation”
Caleb Hamman, Ph.D. “On the Place of the Military in Modern Liberal Democracies”
Cameron O’Bannon, Ph.D, “The Liberal Political Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin.”
Jonathan Gondelman, Ph.D. (2020), “Thucydides and the Passions of City Life.”
Tyler Thomas,Ph.D. (2021), “Descartes’s Intention”
Raul Rodriguez, Ph.D. (2021), “Tocqueville”