Richard Matthews, professor of political science at Lehigh University

Richard K. Matthews

NEH Distinguished University Professor

610-758-3343

rm02@lehigh.edu

Maginnes Hall 346

Education:

1976-81 University of Toronto, Ph.D. in Political Economy

1974-76 University of Delaware, M.A. in Political Science

1970-74 Muhlenberg College, B.A.; Magna Cum Laude

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Research Areas

Political Theory

Additional Interests

Early American Political Thought
Aesthetics
Possible and more alternative, beautiful futures
The end of history

Research Statement

I have published extensively on James Madison (If Men Were Angels) and Thomas Jefferson (The Radical Politicas of Thomas Jefferson. The latter was an “academic best seller”. The Madison book project was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities year long fellowship and the book achieved a feature review in the New York Review of Books. I am also coauthor of an ideology textbook, The Philosophic Roots of Modern Ideology, that is now in its fifth edition.

As a radical democratic theorist, I will continue to write about the probable end of liberal democracy, a result of market society, and the tragedy of failing to reach a genuine democratic society where all individuals would have an equal, effective right to try to reach their fullest human potential.

Biography

I attended Muhlenberg College, a small liberal arts college that helped open the universe of beauty and wonder to me. I then earned an MA from the University of Delaware and concluded my formal education earning a PhD at the University of Toronto where I was C. B. Macpherson’s last PhD student. Since then I have taught at a few colleges but have spent nearly four decades at Lehigh.

The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View, University Press of Kansas,1984.

Virtue, Corruption, & Self Interest: Political Values in the 18th Century, editor and contributor, Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute for Eighteenth Century Studies, Lehigh University Press, 1994.

If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason, University Press of Kansas, 1995,

The Philosophic Roots of Modern Ideology: Liberalism, Conservatism, Marxism, Fascism, Feminism, Islamism, Fifth Edition, Updated, co-authors D. E. Ingersoll and A. Davison, Sloan Publishing, 2017.

“James Madison’s Last Stand: Are We Witnessing the End of Liberal Democracy? History News Network, George Washington, University, August 23, 2020; reprinted at Brewminate.

“If Donald Trump Actually Wants to Win, What Should He Do?” (op-ed article), Haimo Li interviews Richard Matthews et al., published at Guancha.cn - The Observer (Shanghai), 2016-09-13.

“Interview of Professor Richard Matthews on ‘Lessons from The American Founding’,” by Haimo Li, Chinese Social Sciences Today, 24 April 2013, p. B06.

"An Exchange on James Madison with Gordon Wood," New York Review of Books, 26 May, 1996.

Teaching

I am not currently teaching. When I was participating in course dialogues, I thought of those as artistic experiences where the students taught themselves. In fact, I found there to be a direct correlation between the amount of time they spoke and how much they learned. My ideal class, never quite reached, was to walk into a room and say two words: “let’s begin.” My point is, the goal of a professor should be to make themself superfluous.