Fellows

• About Tocqueville Forum Fellows
• Post-Doctoral Fellows
• Graduate Fellows
• Undergraduate Fellows
   

Post-Doctoral Fellow

2010-2012 Jack Miller Center - Veritas Fund Post-Doctoral Fellow 

The Tocqueville Forum is pleased to announce the selection of Sarah Houser as the Tocqueville Forum's Jack Miller Center - Veritas Fund Post-Doctoral Fellow for the 2010-2012 academic years.  Her primary area of concentration is Political Theory with a secondary concentration in American politics. She is particularly interested in the question of nature of the political community and the obligations of citizenship in a contemporary context. She completed and defended her dissertation, entitled Loving Pimlico: Patriotism in the Age of the Cosmopolis, and directed by Michael Zuckert, in August 2009. In her dissertation Houser examines the cosmopolitan critique of patriotism in the work of Martha Nussbaum and the concept of “constitutional patriotism,” first proposed by Jürgen Habermas and popular among theorists of the European Union, as well as a positive theory of patriotism based upon a Thomistic and Aristotelian understanding of friendship.

In Spring 2009, Houser taught an upper level political science course called “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” which examined the development of these two concepts in the history of political thought from Plato and the Stoics to Chesterton and Tolstoy.

For several years she has also been working on a project involving the political thought of Hannah Mather Crocker, granddaughter of the Puritan minister Cotton Mather and the first person in America to write a treatise on women’s rights. In 2006 she co-authored an article with Eileen Hunt Botting entitled “’Drawing the Line of Equality:’ Hannah Mather Crocker on Women’s Rights,” that was published in the American Political Science Review. In 2009-10, as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Houser will also be co-editing a critical edition of Crocker’s unpublished manuscript Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston (forthcoming, New England Historic Genealogical Society Press) with Botting.

Houser is a 2004 recipient of the Kaneb Center award for Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching and the 2008-09 recipient of the Willis Family Research Fellowship in Gender Studies. She received her B.A. (summa cum laude) in political science from Rhodes College in 2002 and her M.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 2005.  Curriculum Vitae

2009-2010 Jack Miller Center - Veritas Fund Post-Doctoral Fellow

Christopher West is the Tocqueville Forum's Jack Miller Center - Veritas Fund Post-Doctoral Fellow for the 2009-10 academic year. Chris earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University in October 2008, where he also earned his B.A. in Political Science and English Literature in 1993.

After completing his undergraduate studies, Chris worked for The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he helped organize and convene regular working groups for policy activists, congressional staff, and other policy experts in the Washington community. While there, he also wrote on the subject of federalism and unfunded mandates, and was the managing editor of The Guide to Public Policy Experts.

He has taught extensively in the areas of political theory, American politics, and public policy at Rutgers University, Lehigh University, Monmouth University, and the Center for Transformative Leadership. He was named a Civitas Fellow in Faith and Public Policy by the Center for Public Justice in 2002. His primary areas of interest lie in American political thought, religion and politics, American political culture, the American Presidency and political parties. He is currently finishing a book on the historical and theoretical origins and development of presidential popular leadership. Curriculum Vitae

2008-2009 Post-Doctoral Fellow

Brian Smith was the Tocqueville Forum's inaugural Jack Miller Postdoctoral Fellow. In the 2008-9 Academic Year, he taught courses in the American political tradition and convened the Tocqueville Forum's undergraduate reading group. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

A political theorist, Brian completed his doctorate in Government at Georgetown University in July 2008. His dissertation dealt with the notions of nostalgia, historical memory, and declinism in the political thought of Rousseau, Burke, Tocqueville, and Nietzsche. Brian’s work has been published in journals such as Polity, Society, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, and Perspectives on Political Science; his 2006 Interpretation article on Adam Smith won the 2007 Templeton Enterprise Award for the best article published on the culture of enterprise by a scholar under the age of 40 in the previous year. The recipient of H.B. Earhart, Richard M. Weaver, Humane Studies, Publius, and Andrew W. Mellon fellowships, Brian attended Moorpark College from 1998-2000, earned his B.A. in History with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002, and in 2005 was awarded the M.A. in Security Studies from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. Curriculum Vitae

Graduate Fellows

2011-2012 Graduate Fellow

Lewis McCrary is a graduate student in the department of Government. Raised in northern California, he completed a B.A. from the Catholic University of America in politics and philosophy and received honors for a thesis on the Antifederalists. He also holds an M.Phil. in political thought and intellectual history from the University of Cambridge, where his thesis explored the epistolary dialogue between John Adams and John Taylor of Caroline. He has presented papers on a wide variety of subjects in political theory, including federalism and subsidiarity, religion and secularization, and media and democracy.

2010-2011 Graduate Fellow

Paula Olearnik completed her undergraduate studies with a B.A. in Philosophy from Trinity College, University of Cambridge. She continued her studies with a specialization in the Philosophy of language at The Gregorian University in Rome from which she graduated in 2004 with an M.A. in Philosophy. She is currently completing her doctorate in Political Theory with a minor in International Relations at Georgetown University where she has thought an undergraduate course entitled Biotechnology and the Politics of Perfection. Paula is the Events and Outreach Director for the DC-based non-profit The American-Polish Forum, of which she is a co-founder. She is herself Polish by descent, but born and educated in the United Kingdom. She is also working as a research assistant at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Curriculum Vitae

2009-2010 Graduate Fellows

Lorraine Krall is in her fourth year of doctoral studies at Georgetown in political theory. Born and raised in central Pennsylvania, she completed her undergraduate degree at Grove City College in English literature and political science. Before coming to Georgetown, she moved to Waco, TX and spent a year at Baylor’s Department of Church-State studies. Her research interests are in the relationship between women and the public realm, as well as in critics of modernity, such as Michael Oakeshott and Eric Voegelin. Curriculum Vitae

Jonathan Silver was raised in Rochester, New York and was educated in Classics and Political Science at Tufts University. He holds an MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He maintains research interests in the history of political thought, focusing on the classical Greek and Hebraic traditions, and the theory and practice of American government.

Justin Litke proudly hails from Henderson, Kentucky, and studied Politics and Philosophy at the Catholic University of in Washington, D.C. After graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2006, he remained in Washington to study at Georgetown University toward a Ph.D. in Political Theory. Justin has wide interests in the history of political thought including classical and medieval political thought, Christian political thought, American political thought, and the writings of the Twentieth Century agrarians. Justin's research centers on the relation of tradition and innovation, and the philosophical and historical interplay of politics and religion. His dissertation, "American Exceptionalism: "From Exemplar to Empire," is a theoretical and historical treatment of the idea of American exceptionalism, filling a notable gap in the scholarly literature on the subject. He lives happily with his wife near Capitol Hill. Curriculum Vitae

James Poulos is a graduate student in Government at Georgetown University, specializing in political theory and international relations. He graduated cum laude in political science at Duke University and has a JD from the University of Southern California. He is at work on a dissertation about individuality in Napoleon's wake. His research interests include varieties of individualism, theories of the West, politics and religion, and democratic theory. Founding editor of the Postmodern Conservative blog at First Things, his commentary has appeared at The Atlantic Council, The Boston Globe, Bloggingheads, The National Interest, The New Atlantis, Society, and elsewhere. Curriculum Vitae

Summer 2009 Graduate Fellows

Lorraine Krall is in her third year of doctoral studies at Georgetown in political theory. Born and raised in central Pennsylvania, she completed her undergraduate degree at Grove City College in English literature and political science. Before coming to Georgetown, she moved to Waco, TX and spent a year at Baylor’s Department of Church-State studies. Her research interests are in critics of modernity, such as Michael Oakeshott and Eric Voegelin, as well as in the intersections between politics, literature, and religion.

Justin Litke proudly hails from Henderson, Kentucky, and studied Politics and Philosophy at the Catholic University of American in Washington, D.C. After graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2006, he remained in D.C. to study at Georgetown University toward a Ph.D. in Political Theory in the Department of Government. Justin has wide interests in the history of political thought including classical and medieval political thought, Christian political thought, American political thought, and the writings of the Twentieth Century agrarians. Justin's research centers on the relation of tradition and innovation, and the philosophical and historical interplay of politics and religion. He lives happily with his wife near Capitol Hill.

Neil Rogachevsky, a native of Toronto, received his BA in intellectual history from McGill University in 2004. He then went on to an MA in political science at the University of Toronto and spent two years as an Asper fellow in the social sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, during which time he also contributed articles to the Jerusalem Post. As a graduate student in the department of government at Georgetown, Neil studies Greek political philosophy and the Greek historians, but also hopes to work on the political thought of the Hebrew Bible as well as 19th century French political thought and practice. He is also interested in foreign affairs. Curriculum Vitae

2008-2009 Graduate Fellows

Lorraine Krall is in her third year of doctoral studies at Georgetown in political theory. Born and raised in central Pennsylvania, she completed her undergraduate degree at Grove City College in English literature and political science. Before coming to Georgetown, she moved to Waco, TX and spent a year at Baylor’s Department of Church-State studies. Her research interests are in critics of modernity, such as Michael Oakeshott and Eric Voegelin, as well as in the intersections between politics, literature, and religion.

Justin Litke proudly hails from Henderson, Kentucky, and studied Politics and Philosophy at the Catholic University of American in Washington, D.C. After graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2006, he remained in D.C. to study at Georgetown University toward a Ph.D. in Political Theory in the Department of Government. Justin has wide interests in the history of political thought including classical and medieval political thought, Christian political thought, American political thought, and the writings of the Twentieth Century agrarians. Justin's research centers on the relation of tradition and innovation, and the philosophical and historical interplay of politics and religion. He lives happily with his wife near Capital Hill.

Aimee Raile is a PhD candidate in political theory in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Her undergraduate education included degrees in English literature, theology and mathematics. She attended the University of Tulsa where she earned an M.A. in history. Her research interests center on politics and religion. Curriculum Vitae

Jonathan Silver was raised in Rochester, New York and was educated in Classics and Political Science at Tufts University. He holds an MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He maintains research interests in the history of political thought, focusing on the classical Greek and Hebraic traditions, and the theory and practice of American government.

2007-2008 Graduate Fellow

Brian Smith, a political theorist, completed his doctorate in Government at Georgetown University in July 2008.  His dissertation dealt with the notions of nostalgia, historical memory, and declinism in the political thought of Rousseau, Burke, Tocqueville, and Nietzsche. Brian’s essays have been published in the journals Polity, Society, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, and Perspectives on Political Science; his 2006 Interpretation article on Adam Smith won the 2007 Templeton Enterprise Award for the best article published on the culture of enterprise by a scholar under the age of 40 in the previous year. The recipient of H.B. Earhart, Richard M. Weaver, Humane Studies, Publius, and Andrew W. Mellon fellowships, Brian attended Moorpark College from 1998-2000, earned his B.A. in History with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002, and in 2005 was awarded the M.A. in Security Studies from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown.

Summer 2006- Summer 2008 Graduate Fellow

Matthew Sitman is a doctoral candidate studying political theory in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. His research interest lies in the relationship between political thought and theology in the West. Matthew's dissertation, "Redeeming Modernity: The Reformation Self and the Politics of Faith," deals with Calvin's understanding of both Christian freedom and man's divided self, and the way these innovations haunted early modern political thought, particularly that of Hobbes and Rousseau. In the 2008-9 academic year, Matthew will hold a predoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia's Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy.  Curriculum Vitae