Keegan Callanan
Associate Professor of Political Science
 
          - Tel
- (802) 443-5374
- kcallanan@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- By appointment
Keegan Callanan has teaching responsibilities in the history of political philosophy and contemporary political theory. He is author of Montesquieu’s Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics(Cambridge, 2018) and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Montesquieu (Cambridge, 2023). His writing has appeared in publications such as History of Political Thought, Political Research Quarterly, and the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Callanan has held fellowships at Princeton University and the University of Virginia. He was a member of the Executive Council of the New England Political Science Association, and he was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities in 2019. He also serves as Director of the Alexander Hamilton Forum on the American Political Tradition at Middlebury. For the 2020-2021 academic year, he will hold a visiting research fellowship at Princeton University’s James Madison Program on American Ideals and Institutions. A graduate of Bowdoin College, Mr. Callanan received his MA and PhD from Duke.
Courses Taught
      
        
          PSCI 0204
                            
        Left, Right, and Center
      
      
    
  
  Course Description
Left, Right, and Center
 In this course, we shall examine liberalism, conservatism, socialism and their competing conceptions of freedom, equality, the individual, and community. We shall consider the origins of these ideologies in early modern political theory and shall afford special attention to the connection between thought and politics. Authors may include John Locke, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Rawls, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott, and Friedrich Hayek. 3 hrs. lect. (Political Theory)
Terms Taught
Requirements
      
        
          PSCI 0500
                            
        Independent Project
      
      
    
  
  Course Description
Independent Projects
 A program of independent work designed to meet the individual needs of advanced students. (Approval required)
Terms Taught
      
        
          PSCI 0700
                            
        Honors Thesis
      
      
    
  
  Course Description
Honors Thesis
 (Approval required)
Terms Taught
      
        
          PSCI 1427
                                Upcoming
                  
        American Political Tradition
      
      
    
  
  Course Description
American Political Tradition
 In this course we will study the theoretical ideas that informed the creation and development of America’s political system and consider some of the major contemporary challenges to the maintenance of American democracy. We will afford special attention to the political thought of the American Founders, the place of religion in public life, the nature of written constitutions, and the role of America in the world. This course will emphasize serious conversation about important texts and documents. Authors will include James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, the Anti-Federalists, Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, John C. Calhoun, William Lloyd Garrison, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Croly, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Russel Kirk, Milton Friedman, William Brennan, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Antonin Scalia.
Terms Taught
Requirements