Thomas E. Schneider

Visiting Assistant Professor

Fall 2007

  • Political Theory and Utopia (GOV 024)
  • Liberalism and Its Critics (GOV 244)
Phone (207) 798-4237
Title Visiting Assistant Professor
Department GOVERNMENT
Work Location Ashby House
E-Mail tschneid@bowdoin.edu
Thomas E. Schneider: Bowdoin College

Education

Ph.D., Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
M.A., The Graduate Institute in Liberal Education, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland
B.A., Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle

Publications

Lincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over SlaveryLincoln's Defense of Politics: The Public Man and His Opponents in the Crisis over Slavery. University of Missouri Press, 2006
Examines two groups of opponents: abolitionists--Henry David Thoreau, William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass--and states'-rights constitutionalists--Alexander Stephens, John C. Calhoun, and George Fitzhugh. Though on opposite sides of the slavery question, these groups concurred in opposing Lincoln's more robustly political approach.

Co-editor, James Fitzjames Stephen, On Society, Religion, and Government. Oxford University Press, in preparation
Stephen (1829-94; English jurist, essayist, and critic of John Stuart Mill) took a keen interest in the social, religious, and political questions of his day and wrote on many of them in periodicals such as the Cornhill Magazine and the Saturday Review. In spite of the high quality and enduring interest of his journalism, only a small proportion was collected during his lifetime, and very little has been republished since his death. This volume, one of eleven in preparation, will focus on Stephen's contributions to debates on such matters as church–state relations, the dependence of morality on religion, and the challenge to traditional beliefs presented by developments in science.

"J. S. Mill and Fitzjames Stephen on the American Civil War," History of Political Thought 28/2 (Summer 2007)
Mill's and Stephen's views on the American conflict open a window on the differences in their political-theoretical stances: Mill viewed it in the light of his hopes for the improvement of mankind, which Stephen thought extravagant. First presented at a conference on the work of James Fitzjames Stephen, Boston University, April 2005.

"Lincoln and Leadership," Perspectives on Political Science 36/2 (Spring 2007) Considers the appropriateness of "leadership" as a criterion for judging Lincoln's career.

"Freedom of Expression in World Perspective," forthcoming in Society
Co-written with Üner Daglier. Applies Mill's views to recent tensions between the Islamic world and the West.

"Traditionalism and Modernization: The Case of Mori Ôgai." Comparative Civilizations Review, Spring 2005
Japanese writer Mori Ôgai (1862-1922) offers a valuable perspective on modernization as both a littérateur grounded in East Asian tradition and a Western-trained scientist and bureaucrat.