Simon Gilhooley

Associate Professor of Political Studies

Primary Academic Program: Politics

Academic Program Affiliation(s): American and Indigenous Studies

Biography: Simon Gilhooley specializes in American politics and political thought. His research addresses issues of constitutionality and authority within the American polity. His book The Antebellum Origins of the Modern US Constitution: Slavery and the Spirit of the American Founding explores the development of the idea of the Constitution as representative of a historical spirit and the emergence of this idea within the historical context of antebellum slavery. Professor Gilhooley’s research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Library Company of Philadelphia, and McNeil Center for Early American Studies, among others. He teaches courses on contemporary American politics, American political history, American political thought, and constitutional practice. Before coming to Bard, he taught at Ithaca College.

Recent publications include “Founding Authority: Authority, John Marshall, and the Supreme Court in the American Founding,” British Journal of American Legal Studies 11:2 (2022); and “‘An Affair of History, Law, and Institutions’: William Graham Sumner’s Historical Method and the Responsibility of the Individual,” American Political Thought 10:4 (2021).

MA, University of Edinburgh; MA, University of London, Institute for the Study of the Americas; MA, PhD, Cornell University. At Bard since 2013.

• Research Interests: History of political thought; American political thought; Constitutional theory; American political development; public media and democratic politics; philosophy and practice in the Early Republic

Phone: 845-758-7556
Website: https://www.simongilhooley.com
Email:
Location: Aspinwall
Office: 207