Joel Alden Schlosser

This spring at Deep Springs, I'm teaching an intensive seven-week course on Critical Theory Past and Present; I've posted the syllabus under "Teaching." We'll be working through Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, and Honneth as well as Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, and Iris Marion Young. It should be a great course!

I'm pleased to announce the publication of my review of Roslyn Weiss's impressive new study of Plato's Republic  in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review . I'd highly recommend Weiss's work, which now includes book-length studies of the Crito and the Meno as well as the Republic . Here's a link to my piece:  http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-03-33.html .

I just completed a book review of John Cooper's Pursuits of Wisdom for Foucault Studies , which should be coming out in the next few months. Here's my first paragraph: “Philosophy is no doubt a delightful thing,” Callicles says to Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias, “as long as one is exposed to it in moderation at the appropriate time of life. But if one spends more time with it than he should, it’s a man’s undoing.” John M. Cooper’s Pursuits of Wisdom sets out, much as Socrates did in reply to Callicles, to show his readers “how wonderfully good and, above all, interesting the philosophies of antiquity are,” and his intricate and lucid reconstructions of the philosophies of Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, and the Platonists provide a useful account of why philosophy is such a “delightful thing.” Yet while offering perspicuous readings of these philosophers’ arguments, Cooper’s book also misses an opportunity to convince the likes of Callicles toda...

I'm thrilled to announce that my article on hope and Thucydides, entitled "'Hope, Danger's Comforter': Thucydides, Hope, Politics," has now been published by The Journal of Politics . In the abstract, I describe the article as follows: With its ascendancy in American political discourse during the past few years, hope has become a watchword of politics, yet the rhetoric has failed to inquire into the actual function of hope in political life. This essay examines elpis, the Greek word for ‘‘hope,’’ in Thucydides’ History and offers a theoretical account of this concept and its connection to successful political action. I suggest that a complex understanding of hope structures Thucydides’ narrative: Hope counts as among the most dangerous political delusions, yet it also offers the only possible response to despair. Thucydides’ text educates the judgment of his readers, chastening hope while showing its importance despite its flaws. The History thus offers an...

One week into the winter semester here at Deep Springs, I have finalized syllabi for the three courses I'm teaching this winter: Public Speaking; Antigone: Feminism, Tragedy, Politics; and Freedom and the State in Modern Political Thought. Links to the syllabi are under "Teaching" above. Enjoy.

Welcome! This is the homepage for Joel Alden Schlosser, Julian Steward Chair in the Social Sciences at Deep Springs College. My teaching and writing focuses on understanding democratic life through historical and philosophical inquiry. My book, What Would Socrates Do? , reconstructs Socrates' practice of philosophy in democratic Athens and engages contemporary figures such as Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, and others, to translate these Socratic practices to the present. In addition to completing my book on Socrates, I am also currently working on two other book projects: a manuscript on Herodotus (tentatively titled Why Social Scientists Should Read Herodotus ) and one examining hope and its connection to democratic politics in ancient Athens and contemporary America. I have published work in The Journal of Politics , Political Research Quarterly , Foucault Studies , and The Bryn Mawr Classical Review . You may find a fuller description of my book man...