Welcome! I’m a political theorist specializing in American political thought, law, and literature. Currently I’m an assistant professor in Democracy and Justice Studies and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where I teach public law and political theory and serve as pre-law advisor. I’ve also taught at Georgetown and Duke universities and in correctional facilities. I received my degree from Cornell.
My current research recovers and reconstructs the political and legal thinking of incarcerated activists throughout history and the contemporary United States. I’ve had articles published in American Political Science Review, New Political Science, Review of Politics, Political Theory, and elsewhere. I’m currently writing a second book, George Jackson Lives! Law, Liberation, and the Ends of Incarceration.
My first book, The Claims of Experience: Autobiography and American Democracy, provides a new theory for what makes autobiography political throughout the history of the United States and today.
Published in 2019, the book is available through Oxford University Press or Amazon.
It’s been reviewed positively at The Review of Politics, Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, and elsewhere.
The banner above is from George Jackson Lives (1976) by Malaquias Montoya, courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art museum.
You can reach me at nolan.d.bennett [at] gmail dot com.
Thank you for visiting!