Degrees:
Ph.D., Northwestern Univ.
B.A., Univ. of Michigan
Boris Litvin received his PhD in political science at Northwestern University in 2019. His research and teaching interests are in political theory, focusing especially on the place of spectators and spectatorship in democratic life. Boris’s scholarly publications have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the European Journal of Political Theory and the Review of Politics, among other outlets. His book manuscript, You the People: Political Theory and the Construction of Popular Audiences, investigates how political thinkers across intellectual history adapt emerging literary genres such as plays and novels in their efforts to invoke “the people.”
Because Boris’s teaching usually centers on the history of political thought, his courses seek to impart a sense of urgency when approaching old and foreign texts. To that end, Boris often challenges students to translate abstract concepts into terms that speak to current-day social and political challenges. |
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The History of Political Thought
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Democratic Theory
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Politics and Aesthetics
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Social Movements and Collective Action
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FYSM-150
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Assembling "The People": Democracy and Political Participation
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POLS-357
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Hannah Arendt: Political Theory in Dark Times
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Modern Political Thought
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Spectatorship and Political Agency
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Political Representation
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Textual Interpretation
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Publications:
- “‘This Hearing Should Be Flipped’: Democratic Spectatorship, Social Media, and the Problem of Demagogic Candor.” American Political Science Review 117.1 (2023): 153-167.
- “Authoring Machiavelli: Barbera Salutati, La Mandragola, and the
Performance of Political Theory.” The Wives of Western Philosophy.
Routledge (2021): 56-72.
- “Mapping rule and subversion: Perspective and the democratic turn in Machiavelli scholarship.” European Journal of Political Theory 18.1 (2019): 3-25.
- “Staging Emile: Audience and Genre in Collective Self-Legislation.” The Review of Politics 81.3 (2019): 381-408.
Recent Presentations:
- “Boris Litvin on Spectatorship, Memes, and Rousseau.”Virtual Sentiments Podcast episode with Kristen Collins, November 22, 2023.
- “You the People: Political Theory and the Construction of Popular Audiences.”Book Proposal Workshop, The Association for Political Theory Annual Conference, Schenectady, NY, October 2023.
- “Constructing without Convincing: Rousseau and Political Representation.”Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Chicago, IL, April 2023.
- “Machiavellian Democracy and the Appearance of Firsthand Experience.”American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, September 2021.
- “Theorizing Empowered Spectatorship.” The Association for Political Theory Annual Conference, Irvine, CA, October 2019.
- “The Flickering and often Dim Light of Biography: Arendt on Action and Authorship,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 2017.
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- Graduate Writing Fellowship, Cook Family Writing Program, Northwestern University, 2016-2017
- Catalyst Grant, The Graduate School, Northwestern University, November 2016
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