Faculty Directory

Summary of Expertise

Democratic theory; language and affect; capitalism, commercial society, and their transformations; politics of Buddhist modernism; pleasure and political subjectivity 

Research Interests

Dean Mathiowetz is a political theorist whose pedagogy and writings address a broad range of topics: democratic theory; theories of affect and new materialisms; classical and critical political economy; ancient political thought; Buddhist modernism as political thought and practice; conceptual history, philosophy of language, hermeneutics, and problems of interpretation.

Mathiowetz is currently engaged in two areas of research. The first brings attention to affect, the body, and pleasure back into discourses of political economy---with luxury as a focal concept for these studies. This project seeks to expand political theory's awareness of and capacity to handle people's attachments to inequality and hierarchy. Mathiowetz's other current project explores Buddhist modernism in relation to democratic theory.

Mathiowetz's first book, Appeals to Interest: Language, Contestation, and the Shaping of Political Agency (Penn State Univ Press, 2011), has been reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, Theory & Event, Political Studies Review, Political Theory, and other leading journals. He is editor of and contributor to Hanna Fenichel Pitkin: Politics, Judgement, Action, a volume in Routledge's series, Innovators in Political Thought (2016), and numerous articles and interviews, linked below.

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., Political Science. University of California at Berkeley, 2003
M.A., Political Science. University of California at Berkeley, 1996
B.A. Summa Cum Laude, Economics and Political Science. University of Minnesota, 1995

Honors, Awards and Grants

Excellence in Teaching Award, 2006

Excellence in Teaching Award, 2016

Selected Publications

• "The Berkeley School of Political Theory as Moment and as Tradition," in PS: Political Science & Politics (July 2017)
• "Good-for-Nothing Practice and the Art of Paradox: The Exemplary Citizenship of Ta-Nehisi Coates," in The Arrow (April 2017)
• "Kairos and Affect in Rancière’s 'Ten Theses on Politics'" in Theory & Event 20:1 (January 2017)
• "'Meditation is Good for Nothing': Leisure as a Democratic Practice," in New Political Science 38:2 (June 2016)
• "Hanna Fenichel Pitkin and the Dilemmas of Political Thinking," in Hanna Fenichel Pitkin: Politics, Justice, Action. ed. Dean Mathiowetz, Routledge, 2016
• "Gay Love Conquers All," The Contemporary Condition (July 14, 2013)
• Review of The Invention of Market Freedom by Eric MacGilvray, in Perspectives on Politics 10:2 (June 2012)
• Appeals to Interest: Language, Contestation, and the Shaping of Political Agency, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.
• “Feeling Luxury,” in Theory & Event 13:4 (Winter 2010)
• “Paying Attention,” review of Capital and Language: From the New Economy to the War Economy, by Christian Marazzi, in Theory & Event 13.3 (Fall 2010)
• “‘Interest’ is a Verb: Arthur Bentley and the Language of Interest,” Political Research Quarterly 61:4 (December 2008)
• “The Juridical Subject of ‘Interest’” in Political Theory 35:4, pp 468-493 (August 2007)
• “Pop Art and Political Symbolism: ‘Property’ and Representation in Texas v. Johnson” in Critical Sense, pp. 41-72 (Spring 1999)
• Review of Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism: Against Politics as Technology by John McCormick, in Center for German and European Studies Forum (Spring 1998)

Selected Presentations

"Meditation's Political Potential," an interview with C. S. Soong, Against the Grain, KPFA (Pacifica Radio), July 11, 2016

Teaching Interests

INDEPENDENT STUDY AND SENIOR THESES

If you would like to talk to me about arranging independent study or a senior thesis, have a look at these Guidelines for Independent Study. They describe what I consider when deciding whether to supervise a project, my expectations and limitations regarding the nature and scope of the work, how I handle independent study credit associated with internships, and senior thesis projects.

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

If you are seeking, or anticipate seeking, of a letter of recommendation from me, please consult my protocol for letters of recommendation. There you can read about when it's appropriate for me to write a letter, when your request should come, what materials I need in order to write the letter, and when I should receive them.