Much has changed for American mothers over the past two hundred and forty-one years, but like the mothers who preceded us, we’re raising children. We’re making citizens. We’re perpetuating the project of 1776. A popular American anecdote describes a usually unnamed Philadelphia lady questioning Benjamin Franklin on the street outside Independence Hall in September of […]
LATEST ARTICLES
A Nation Without a Soul? A Response to Sarah L. Houser’s “Accountability Nationalism”
Nationalism and religious life are intricately intertwined in the United States. A “civil religion of the Nones,” if it comes into existence, could portend significant changes in American nationalism. In her recent Starting Points essay, Sarah L. Houser urges revision to our conception of national identity. Her piece redefines it as a shared “sense of […]
Machiavelli’s Politics: Author Interview with Catherine H. Zuckert
A Political Theory Review interview with Catherine Zuckert, Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, about her new book, Machiavelli’s Politics (University of Chicago Press, April 2017). Hear more interviews from The Political Theory Review.
Civic Myth in the Age of Trumpian Reality: Part II
Hope for building a shared narrative of national identity lies in the formation of an inclusive civic myth based upon the Gettysburg narrative and the Horatio Alger story. As the discussion in Part I of this essay should have made clear, the barriers to building a shared narrative of national identity out of existing civic […]
Civic Myth in the Age of Trumpian Reality: Part I
The sweep of American history yields four distinct narratives of American identity, or civic myths. An ethnically inclusive, multicultural narrative of American national identity fused from our most prominent American stories has the best chance of promoting economic prosperity while also projecting a superior normative vision of America to its own citizens and the world. […]
