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To lead into the next season of Enduring Interest, we're re-releasing our first two seasons, covering totalitarianism and ideology and liberal education. We'll be back on September 8 with a new season covering free speech and censorship. This episode concludes our series on liberal education. We have three of our previous guests in the series back to discuss some common themes in the work of Leo Strauss, Michael Oakeshott and Hannah Arendt. We have Michael and Catherine Zuckert, Rita Koganzon, and Elizabeth Corey all returning to the podcast for the discussion. Topics include the place of reverence and tradition in liberal education, the authority of the teacher, and the purpose or purposes of liberal education. See our previous episodes for the bios of these guests.
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes.
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes.
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present. Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s." Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/french-studies
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
Rita Koganzon's new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021), examines the structure and function of the family within early modern political thought while also teasing out the way that early childhood education may often be at odds with the claims to freedom within liberal states. Koganzon's book traces the problem of authority in early modern thought in regard to how children need to be managed by those who are responsible for them—and how they are to be taught to be citizens, to be free, to have liberty, and to understand sovereignty. All of these teachings are complicated by the need to impose an authority of knowledge and expertise in the course of a child's education. When these forms of authority are contextualized within liberal states, the tension is obvious between the idea of individual liberty and freedom, as pursued by adults in society, and the need to educate through this position of the authority of knowledge. Koganzon's work traces the approach and theorizing about the family and education through the work of Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But the book starts with Hannah Arendt's insight about education being an “inherently authoritarian undertaking” and that this is the conundrum for contemporary liberal thinkers. The first sections of the book examine the rise of sovereignty theory, especially in the work of Bodin and Hobbes. This work also brings up the logic of congruence, that the sovereign and the patriarch should be mirrors of each other in terms of their rule within their distinct realms. The thrust of the book, though, is in the exploration of the work by Locke and Rousseau, and their critiques of the sovereignty theory put forward by those who preceded them. Koganzon examines how both Locke's work and Rousseau's work also push against the logic of congruence in terms of the form of education. Liberal States, Authoritarian Families delves into the problem, particularly for Locke and Rousseau, of the tyranny of public opinion (the problem of peer pressure is real!), and how anti-authoritarian liberalism, particularly in the contemporary period, has done away with many of the components of authoritarianism within education that helped to limit this tyranny. This is a very clear and lively discussion and will be of interest to a wide range of readers and scholars. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
The Gary L. McDowell Institute at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies presents Rita Koganzon for her presentation “Liberal States, Authoritarian Families.” Koganzon is the author of “Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood & Education in Early Modern Thought,” associate director of the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy, and assistant professor of politics at the University of Virginia. Nov. 12, 2021