John Zumbrunnen
Professor | Political Science
John Zumbrunnen has wide-ranging interests in the history of political thought, democratic theory, American political thought, and the philosophy of social science. Much of Zumbrunnen's published scholarship works at the intersection of Greek political thought and contemporary democratic theory, seeking in particular to recover ancient texts as resources for our thinking about the place and potential of ordinary citizens in mass democracy. In addition to this ongoing interest in the Greeks, he is currently at work on a projection on education, self-education and democracy in American political thought. Zumbrunnen’s first book, Silence and Democracy: Athenian Politics in Thucydides’ History, was published by Penn State University Press in May 2008. His second book, Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship was published by the University of Rochester Press/Boydell & Brewer in 2012. His work has appeared in The American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Polity, History of Political Thought and Political Behavior as well as in various edited volumes.
Zumbrunnen is also Director of the American Democracy Forum (ADF). The ADF was founded in 2010 with the goal of encouraging conversations about the founding principles of American political thought and the role of those principles in the ongoing practice of American democracy. ADF programming includes a postdoctoral fellowship, a program for junior high and high school educators and an undergraduate fellows program.
Recent Publications
John Zumbrunnen. Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship. University of Rochester Press, 2012 |
John Zumbrunnen, Byoung-Cheon Lee, and Se-Hyoung Yi. "Dialogue: American Progressivism and Conservatism—Their Origins, Transitions, and the Present." Citizen and the World 18 (Winter 2010): 134-64. |
John Zumbrunnen. "Comedy, the Ordinary Citizen, and the Salvation of the City." In Karen Bassi and J. Peter Euben, eds., When Worlds Elide: Classics, Politics, Culture. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. |
John Zumbrunnen Silence and Democracy: Athenian Politics in Thucydides’ History. Penn State University Press, 2008. |
John Zumbrunnen, Amy Gangl “Conflict, Fusion, or Coexistence? The Complexity of Contemporary American Conservatism.” Political Behavior 30:2 (June 2008). |
John Zumbrunnen “Rejection, Ratification, and the Evolution of a People: The Case of Wisconsin.” In Constitutionalism in the American States, edited by George Connor and Christopher Hammons. University of Missouri Press, 2008. |
John Zumbrunnen “Fantasy, Irony, and Economic Justice in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and Wealth.” American Political Science Review, 100:3 (August 2006). |
John Zumbrunnen “Elite Domination and the Ordinary Citizen: Aristophanes’ Acharnians and Knights,” Political Theory, 23:5 (October 2004). |
John Zumbrunnen “’Courage in the Face of Reality:’ Nietzsche’s Admiration for Thucydides.” Polity 35:2 (Winter 2002). |
John Zumbrunnen “Democratic Politics and the ‘Character’ of the City in Thucydides.” History of Political Thought 23:4 (Winter 2002). |
