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ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR, Arthur
Melzer is Professor of Political Science at
Michigan State Professor Melzer is primarily interested in studying the cultural discontents that modern liberal democratic capitalism has generated and the counter-ideals spawned by those discontents. His research has focused largely on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the father of almost all modern culture criticism and the originator of such countercultural ideals as Romanticism, bohemianism, sincerity or authenticity, secular compassion, and historical relativism. Professor Melzer also has a strong interest in the ethical writings of Aristotle. His writings include The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought (University of Chicago Press, 1990); “The Problem with the ‘Problem of Technology’” in The Problem of Technology in the Western Tradition, ed. Melzer, Weinberger and Zinman (Cornell University Press, 1993); “The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity” (American Political Science Review, June 1996); “Anti-anti-Foundationalism: Is a Theory of Moral Sentiments Possible?” (Perspectives on Political Science, Summer 2001); and “Tolerance 101” (The New Republic, July 10, 1991). He is also co-author of the Lefrak Forum books. |
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DIRECTOR, and
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, Jerry Weinberger is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. From 1997 until 2001 he was Chair of the Department of Political Science. He received his B.A. from The University of California at Berkeley in 1967 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1973. He won the Michigan State University Teacher-Scholar Award and has twice been a Senior Research Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Professor Weinberger has pursued a career-long interest in the relation between modern politics and the rise of modern science and technology. He has written extensively on the seventeenth century philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon and more recently has lectured and written on the emerging subject of biotechnology. Professor Weinberger is also interested in the political thought of Martin Heidegger. Among his books and articles are Science, Faith and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age (Cornell University Press, 1985); “Politics and the Problem of Technology: An Essay on Heidegger and the Tradition of Political Philosophy” (American Political Science Review, March 1992); “Technology and the Problem of Liberal Democracy” in The Problem of Technology in the Western Tradition, ed. Melzer, Weinberger, and Zinman (Cornell University Press, 1993); and Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh: A New Edition and Interpretive Essay (Cornell University Press, 1996). His latest book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (The University Press of Kansas, 2005). He is also co-author of the Lefrak Forum books. |
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EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, M. Richard Zinman is University Distinguished Professor of Political Theory in James Madison College, Michigan State’s residential college for undergraduates studying political affairs. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the Claremont Graduate School in 1976. In 1969 he helped found James Madison College and he has for many years served as Chair of its program in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy. He has been a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and in 2001 served as Distinguished Guest Professor in the Institute of Political Studies at Portuguese Catholic University. Professor Zinman has focused on the challenges posed for the theory and practice of liberal democracy by the so-called “death of God” or nihilism. He has written and lectured widely on the political philosophy of the American Founding and on Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Nietzsche. He is a highly recognized teacher of undergraduates, having won Michigan State’s Distinguished Faculty Award, the State of Michigan’s Teaching Excellence Award, and Michigan States’s Honors College Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honors Students. His former students occupy distinguished positions in universities across the nation, in national politics, and in the legal and judicial professions. His most recent papers are “Nietzsche’s Thucydides” and “Nietzsche, Democracy, and the Pathos of Distance.” He is also co-editor of all the Lefrak Forum books. |
