Published Research
The Impact of Infrastructure: Considerations of Generative AI in the Classroom (2024)
How are we to grapple with the increasing intrusion of technology in the classroom? What considerations need to be addressed before we begin bringing advanced technological systems like ChatGPT into our classroom spaces? A close attention to the infrastructural elements at play within the development and usage of AI gives us a better understanding of what is at stake when we bring AI into the classroom. The social and environmental impacts of AI, in particular, are often overlooked in new technological tools, especially ones that are supposed to frictionlessly improve our lives. Ultimately instructors need to balance the potential benefits and drawbacks of using forms of generative AI in the classroom and have a clear view of the impact of their decisions. For Political Science instructors, the impacts of AI may provide new teaching opportunities as well.
“Doing” Political Theory in the Classroom (2023)
In political theory “learning” and “doing” are synonymous. One learns about political theory only by doing political theory. By framing the act of teaching political theory as a collaborative act of “doing” political theory both the students and the instructor have a more collaborative learning experience. This experience is enhanced when the instructor brings their own research into the classroom and can even lead to new avenues of study. When the instructor views the class not as an authoritative act of “telling” but as “doing” political theory collaboratively, it creates a more rewarding learning environment and opens the class up to forms of critical pedagogy that de-hierarchize the classroom. It also allows the instructor to bring his or her own research and expertise into the classroom. Doing this creates a generative process of learning that may lead to additional original research as a result.
The Realities Facing Graduate Students: Before, During, and After the 2020 Covid Pandemic (2023)
With Angela Pashayan, Huei-Jyun Ye, Grace Mueller, Charmaine Willis
Abstract: Committees from the American Political Science Association (APSA) on the status of graduate students in political science conducted digital surveys in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Distributed using listservs from APSA, the surveys asked about a range of realities facing graduate students including employment opportunities, industry or academic support, and overall well-being. Analysis of the data pre-, during-, and post-pandemic revealed high anxiety in 2018 as part of students’ experience looking for jobs. By 2020 and 2022, anxiety worsened, such that the well-being of graduate students in political science should be addressed. We recommend a change in the structure of graduate academic programs to include stronger institutional support and an emphasis on alternative paths for work that does not entail teaching at an academic institution.
Just Coups: A Reconsideration of Domestic Military Intervention in the Journal of Military Ethics (2023)
Abstract: Are there situations where military coups can be considered justified, such as the overthrow of a collapsing, genocidal dictatorship? I argue that under certain circumstances there is an opening for “just coups.” I propose a theoretical assessment of coups based on an adaptation of just war theory. I bring the comparative literature surrounding civil-military relations into conversation with the literature on just war theory in order to develop a theory of just coups. By adapting the categories of just war theory into jus ad coup, jus in coup, and jus post coup, I show that these categories create a framework for understanding the ethical status of coups. Doing this gives us a more subtle understanding of the problem of coups and lets us understand how a hypothetical just coup may be possible
The Subatomic Person: A New Ontology of Big Data in Theory & Event (2022)
Abstract: Big data impacts us at an ontological level, developing a new idea of personhood, which I identify as the subatomic individual. This subatomic individual is created by the hegemony of big data and is distinct from the older, atomic form of individualism. Where the atomic individual represents the person as the smallest unit of analysis, the subatomic individual is broken into even smaller pieces. This subatomic individual is made up of individual pieces of information about our empirical selves that are then collected in massive databases and used to influence society. This has a depoliticizing impact, as big data strips the context from the subatomic person, leaving it in a perpetual present with no connection to the past nor hope of a transformative future.
A Study of Ungrading in Upper-Level Political Theory Courses in the Journal of Political Science Education (2022)
Abstract: This paper presents results from qualitative student reflections from three upper-level courses taught using the “ungrading” pedagogy. This is a pedagogy that emphasizes student learning and self-evaluation by omitting quantitative grades, replacing them with a structure where students evaluate themselves and define their own grades for the course. This work draws on comments taken from student reflections and personal accounts of the course design and outcomes presented as a comprehensive reflection on the pedagogy. The goal of these reflections is to present the advantages and challenges of using such a system and a firsthand account for instructors who are interested in alternative grading schemes. Overall, students found ungrading to be initially worrying, but ultimately rewarding. Student work improved and individual students reflected on the innovative nature of the class, providing concrete suggestions for future iterations.
“I Am an American”: The Political Consequences of Hank Morgan’s Lack of Identity in the Mark Twain Journal (2014)
Why Political Scientists Should Embrace Multi-Method Grading in the APSA Educate Blog
"Here’s what Gandhi has to say to today’s protesters" in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage (2017)
How are we to grapple with the increasing intrusion of technology in the classroom? What considerations need to be addressed before we begin bringing advanced technological systems like ChatGPT into our classroom spaces? A close attention to the infrastructural elements at play within the development and usage of AI gives us a better understanding of what is at stake when we bring AI into the classroom. The social and environmental impacts of AI, in particular, are often overlooked in new technological tools, especially ones that are supposed to frictionlessly improve our lives. Ultimately instructors need to balance the potential benefits and drawbacks of using forms of generative AI in the classroom and have a clear view of the impact of their decisions. For Political Science instructors, the impacts of AI may provide new teaching opportunities as well.
“Doing” Political Theory in the Classroom (2023)
In political theory “learning” and “doing” are synonymous. One learns about political theory only by doing political theory. By framing the act of teaching political theory as a collaborative act of “doing” political theory both the students and the instructor have a more collaborative learning experience. This experience is enhanced when the instructor brings their own research into the classroom and can even lead to new avenues of study. When the instructor views the class not as an authoritative act of “telling” but as “doing” political theory collaboratively, it creates a more rewarding learning environment and opens the class up to forms of critical pedagogy that de-hierarchize the classroom. It also allows the instructor to bring his or her own research and expertise into the classroom. Doing this creates a generative process of learning that may lead to additional original research as a result.
The Realities Facing Graduate Students: Before, During, and After the 2020 Covid Pandemic (2023)
With Angela Pashayan, Huei-Jyun Ye, Grace Mueller, Charmaine Willis
Abstract: Committees from the American Political Science Association (APSA) on the status of graduate students in political science conducted digital surveys in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Distributed using listservs from APSA, the surveys asked about a range of realities facing graduate students including employment opportunities, industry or academic support, and overall well-being. Analysis of the data pre-, during-, and post-pandemic revealed high anxiety in 2018 as part of students’ experience looking for jobs. By 2020 and 2022, anxiety worsened, such that the well-being of graduate students in political science should be addressed. We recommend a change in the structure of graduate academic programs to include stronger institutional support and an emphasis on alternative paths for work that does not entail teaching at an academic institution.
Just Coups: A Reconsideration of Domestic Military Intervention in the Journal of Military Ethics (2023)
Abstract: Are there situations where military coups can be considered justified, such as the overthrow of a collapsing, genocidal dictatorship? I argue that under certain circumstances there is an opening for “just coups.” I propose a theoretical assessment of coups based on an adaptation of just war theory. I bring the comparative literature surrounding civil-military relations into conversation with the literature on just war theory in order to develop a theory of just coups. By adapting the categories of just war theory into jus ad coup, jus in coup, and jus post coup, I show that these categories create a framework for understanding the ethical status of coups. Doing this gives us a more subtle understanding of the problem of coups and lets us understand how a hypothetical just coup may be possible
The Subatomic Person: A New Ontology of Big Data in Theory & Event (2022)
Abstract: Big data impacts us at an ontological level, developing a new idea of personhood, which I identify as the subatomic individual. This subatomic individual is created by the hegemony of big data and is distinct from the older, atomic form of individualism. Where the atomic individual represents the person as the smallest unit of analysis, the subatomic individual is broken into even smaller pieces. This subatomic individual is made up of individual pieces of information about our empirical selves that are then collected in massive databases and used to influence society. This has a depoliticizing impact, as big data strips the context from the subatomic person, leaving it in a perpetual present with no connection to the past nor hope of a transformative future.
A Study of Ungrading in Upper-Level Political Theory Courses in the Journal of Political Science Education (2022)
Abstract: This paper presents results from qualitative student reflections from three upper-level courses taught using the “ungrading” pedagogy. This is a pedagogy that emphasizes student learning and self-evaluation by omitting quantitative grades, replacing them with a structure where students evaluate themselves and define their own grades for the course. This work draws on comments taken from student reflections and personal accounts of the course design and outcomes presented as a comprehensive reflection on the pedagogy. The goal of these reflections is to present the advantages and challenges of using such a system and a firsthand account for instructors who are interested in alternative grading schemes. Overall, students found ungrading to be initially worrying, but ultimately rewarding. Student work improved and individual students reflected on the innovative nature of the class, providing concrete suggestions for future iterations.
“I Am an American”: The Political Consequences of Hank Morgan’s Lack of Identity in the Mark Twain Journal (2014)
Why Political Scientists Should Embrace Multi-Method Grading in the APSA Educate Blog
"Here’s what Gandhi has to say to today’s protesters" in the Washington Post's Monkey Cage (2017)
Research In Progress
The Age of Data: A New Critical Theory of Technology (Book manuscript in progress)
Data Dispossession: Against the Property Model of Data (Under review)
“Doing” Political Theory in the Classroom (Under contract at Palgrave)
Chapter for volume on teaching and research
Eds. Charity Butcher, Tavishi Bhasin, Elizabeth Gordon, & Maia Hallward
TechnoPlatonism: The Epistemology of Big Data
Ethics or Power: Reconsidering the Utility of AI Ethics
With Wendy Wong
The TechnoPessimists: Twain, Adorno and Mbembe on Technological Destruction
Data Dispossession: Against the Property Model of Data (Under review)
“Doing” Political Theory in the Classroom (Under contract at Palgrave)
Chapter for volume on teaching and research
Eds. Charity Butcher, Tavishi Bhasin, Elizabeth Gordon, & Maia Hallward
TechnoPlatonism: The Epistemology of Big Data
Ethics or Power: Reconsidering the Utility of AI Ethics
With Wendy Wong
The TechnoPessimists: Twain, Adorno and Mbembe on Technological Destruction