August 23-24 2023: Alexis de Tocqueville in America
“So I did not study America just to satisfy curiosity … I sought there lessons from which we might profit” (Democracy in America).
PART 1 – AUGUST 23, 2023 – 6:30-8:00PM – Watkins Room, Trone Student Center
PART 2 – AUGUST 24, 2023 – 5:00-6:30PM – Watkins Room, Trone Student Center
Scholars-in-Residence:
Richard Avramenko (UW – Madison)
“Tocqueville on the Law and Liberal Education”
Richard Avramenko is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin – Madison where he is also the director of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy, and the editor-in-chief of the Political Science Reviewer. He earned his B.A. at the University of Calgary, M.A. at Carleton University and Ph.D. at Georgetown University. Professor Avramenko is the author of Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb (Notre Dame, 2011), the co-editor of Friendship and Politics: Essays in Political Thought (Notre Dame, 2008), Dostoevsky’s Political Philosophy (2013), Aristocratic Souls in Democratic Times (2018), Canadian Conservative Political Thought (2022), and Aristocratic Voices: Traditional Alternatives to Liberalism, Populism and Radical Egalitarianism (2023). He has recently published articles in the Review of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Polis, The Political Science Reviewer, and Political Theory. He is currently working on a new book manuscript: The Crush of Democracy: Tocqueville and the Egalitarian Mind. He is an ardent fan of the New York Yankees, the Edmonton Oilers, and the Green Bay Packers.
Raúl Rodríguez (Michigan State)
“Tocqueville and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy”
Raúl Rodríguez is a dean’s research associate in political science at Michigan State University. He received his B.A. in political science and history from Furman University in 2013. After graduating from Furman, he served in Teach for America as a high school social studies teacher in Denver, Co. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, with a concentration in political philosophy and constitutional studies. Dr. Rodríguez’s writings have appeared in venues such as the American Journal of Political Science, the journal of American Political Thought, and The Review of Politics. He is currently writing a book on Alexis de Tocqueville, titled Redeeming Democracy: Tocqueville’s New Liberalism.
Cheryl Welch (Harvard)
“Tocqueville in Politics: On Reforming Dysfunctional Democracy”
Cheryl B. Welch is a retired senior lecturer on government in the Department of Government at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. from Simmons College, and her M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her research interests are in the areas of the history of political thought (especially 19th-century France), liberal and democratic theory, and the history of human rights. She is the author of Liberty and Utility: The French Idéologues and the Transformation of Liberalism (1984) and De Tocqueville (2001), and the editor of Critical Issues in Social Theory (with M. Milgate, 1989) and The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville (2006). Welch has published articles in Political Theory, History of Political Thought, Modern Intellectual History, The History of European Ideas,
Perspectives on Politics, The Tocqueville Review, and Society, as well as articles in many collective volumes. She is currently working on a book on the pre-history of the notion of “crimes against humanity” centering on the works of Tocqueville’s friend, Gustave de Beaumont.