Dean Caivano

Assistant Professor

610.758.5987

dcc212@lehigh.edu

0009 - Maginnes Hall

Education:

Ph.D., Political Science, York University

M.A., Political Science, Lehigh University

B.A., Philosophy & Politics, University of Pittsburgh

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Research Areas

Political Theory

Additional Interests

Radical Democracy
Prison Abolition
American Political Thought
Narrative - Storytelling

Research Statement

Dr. Caivano’s research focuses on radical democracy and emancipatory politics, with particular attention to how these concepts intersect with contemporary political imaginaries, social movements, and institutional decline. His work critically engages democratic theory, abolitionist thought, and political aesthetics to examine how political practices unsettle dominant frameworks of power, justice, and visibility.

He is the author of The Necro-President: Trump, MAGA, and the Decline of the American Republic (Springer, 2025), which introduces the figure of the necro-president to theorize the American presidency as a site of symbolic death, institutional decay, and authoritarian endurance. His current projects include Frames for Abolition, a book that blends political theory, abolitionist pedagogy, and photography to examine the visual grammar of carcerality; and The Necrocracy: Sovereignty, Death, and the Future of Rule, which theorizes sovereignty as a decaying, spectral form of endurance beyond legitimacy or law.

He is also the author of A Politics of All: Thomas Jefferson and Radical Democracy (Lexington Books 2022), co-author of The Sublime of the Political: Narrative & Autoethnography as Theory (transcript Verlag & Columbia University Press, 2021) and editor of No Escape: Excavating the Multidimensional Phenomenon of Fear (Brill, 2016). His scholarly articles have appeared in Philosophy & Social Criticism, SPECTRA, New Political Science, and the Journal of Narrative Politics, amongst others.

Biography

Dean Caivano is an assistant professor of political theory at Lehigh University. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, he earned his B.A. in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. He then completed his M.A. in Political Science at Lehigh University in 2013 and later received his Ph.D. in Political Science from York University in 2019, specializing in political theory and American politics. In 2024, he returned to Lehigh as a faculty member.

Before joining Lehigh, Dean taught political theory in various higher education settings, including community colleges, research universities, adult education programs, and carceral institutions. These diverse teaching experiences deepened his understanding of students' unique challenges in different educational contexts and fueled his passion for rethinking pedagogical approaches.

Dean’s academic appointments include professor of political science and history at Merced College, where he was named Professor of the Year for two consecutive years. He also served as a lecturer of political theory at California State University, Stanislaus, and as an instructor of political theory at York University. Beyond teaching, Dean has been a visiting scholar at the Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs (APSA) and a visiting fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies.

Dean is the founder and former editor of the Valley Research Journal, a social science journal featuring undergraduate scholarly work from the Central Valley of California.

In his “free time,” Dean enjoys exploring cafés, attending music concerts, and visiting art museums with his wife, Sarah, and their daughter, Florence Lillian. He also stays busy taking walks with their two dogs—Wendy, a majestic blue heeler, and Cowboy, an adorable chihuahua mix. A lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Dean remains ever-hopeful despite the team's nearly perpetual cycle of losing seasons.

Selected Publications

Books

Caivano, Dean. The Necro-President: Trump, MAGA, and the Decline of the American Republic. Springer, 2025.
Caivano, Dean. A Politics of All: Thomas Jefferson and Radical Democracy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022. (Political Theory for Today Series).
Caivano, Dean, and Sarah Naumes. The Sublime of the Political: Narrative & Autoethnography as Theory. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag & New York: Columbia University Press. 2021.
Caivano, Dean, ed. No Escape: Excavating the Multidimensional Phenomenon of Fear. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press & Brill Press, 2016.

Articles/Book Chapters

Caivano, Dean. "The Democratic In-Between: Storytelling and the Politics of Rupture," Open Journal of Political Science 15, no. 3 (2025).
Caivano, Dean. “Universal Teaching in Carceral Spaces: Toward a Critical Prison Pedagogy.” Journal of Education and Practice 16, no 5 (2025).
Breaugh, Martin, and Dean Caivano. "A Living Critique of Domination: Exemplars of Radical Democracy from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo." Philosophy & Social Criticism 48, no. 3 (2022).
Caivano, Dean. "'Anarchy' and the 'Mob' in the Early Republic." Starting Points (Spring 2022).
Caivano, Dean. "The Question of Sharing: Thomas Jefferson and the Idea of Communal Property." Histories 1, no. 3 (2021).
Caivano, Dean. "The Fear of Domination: Resistance Against Tyranny." Journal of the American Revolution (2020).
Caivano, Dean, Rodney Doody, Terry Maley, and Chris Vandenberg. "Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University." In Marcuse in the Twenty-First Century: Radical Politics, Critical Theory, and Revolutionary Praxis. London: Routledge, 2018.
Caivano, Dean, and Hailey Murphy. "Revealing and Acting: Anxiety and Courage in Heidegger and Arendt." SPECTRA 6, no. 1 (2017).
Caivano, Dean, and Sarah Naumes. "Vignettes of the Banal." Journal of Narrative Politics 3, no. 2 (2017).
Caivano, Dean, Rodney Doody, Terry Maley, and Chris Vandenberg. "Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Reflections on the York University Strike through a Marcusean Lens." New Political Science 38, no. 4 (2016).
Caivano, Dean, "The Symbiotic Relationship of the American Megastate and Post-9/11 Terrorism: Politics of Fear, Violence and Dependency." In No Escape: Excavating the Multidimensional Phenomenon of Fear. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press & Brill Press, 2016.

Teaching

POLS 100: Introduction to Political Thought
POLS 356/456: Seminar: Political Philosophy
POLS 357457: Politics of Authenticity
POLS 364: Issues in Contemporary Political Philosophy
POLS 367: American Political Thought

In addition to these courses, Dr. Caivano welcomes undergraduate and graduate students interested in supervised research and teaching opportunities.

Undergraduates interested in pursuing and Apprentice Teaching experience (POLS 300), and Independent Study (POLS 392), or an Honors Thesis (POLS 378/379) are encouraged to contact Dr. Caivano directly.

Graduate students interested in pursuing an Independent Study (POLS 492) or writing a Master's Thesis (POLS 490) should reach out to Dr. Caivano to discuss potential supervision and topics.