Radicals of the Republic.

If it's post-MLK day, it must be the beginning of the spring semester here at Columbia...and this term I've returned to America's shores from East Asia. (How McArthur-esque.) So, for the next few months I'll be TA'ing "The Radical Tradition in America" for the inimitable Prof. Eric Foner, which I'm greatly looking forward to (despite ending up with Thursday night section times that are less than ideal...but ah well. I can't blame anyone but myself for that.) Since most of my work this term on the dissertation (on, put very simply, Progressive persistence in national politics, 1919-1928) is going to involve senators, governors, magazine editors, and other inner-circle types ("They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within"), I'm hoping the objects of study here -- individuals and movements working to effect change outside the confining parameters of legislative politics -- will make for a nice, dynamic, and thought-provoking counterpoint, and one that will help me shore up my own thoughts on civic republicanism, both in its persistence and its possibilities for renewal.