Daniel Kapust

Position title: Professor | Judith Hicks Stiehm Chair in Political Theory | Director, L&S Honors Program

Email: djkapust@wisc.edu

Phone: (608) 263-9429

Address:
314 North Hall

Affiliated with Center for Early Modern Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Department of Integrated Liberal Studies

Education:

M.A./Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999/2005

B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature, University of Maryland, 1998

B.A. in Government and Politics, University of Maryland, 1998

Research Interests:

American Political Thought, Ancient Political Theory, Comparative Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, Demagoguery, Democratic Theory, Early Modern Political Thought, Empire, Liberalism, Modern Political Theory, Populism, Republicanism, Rhetoric and Political Theory, Roman Political Thought, Scottish Enlightenment

Biography:

Daniel Kapust received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005, and came to UW after six years in the Department of Political Science at The University of Georgia. Kapust’s research focuses on the history of political thought, especially Roman, Florentine, early modern British and French, and 18th century American, British, and French, with thematic interests in rhetoric, empire, classical receptions, democratic theory, and the republican tradition.

His first book, Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011; his second book, Flattery in the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. He has published on Thomas Hobbes, Niccolo Machiavelli, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, Adam Smith, Tacitus, James Fenimore Cooper, Mercy Otis Warren, and Bernard Mandeville, along with topics including flattery, republicanism, rhetoric, censorship, demagoguery, and political fear. His work has been published in journals including American Political Science ReviewJournal of Politics, Contemporary Political TheoryPolitical TheoryPolitical Studies, History of Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas, Democracy and Security, and the European Journal of Political Theory.

He is currently working on two book projects: one on Lucretius and early modern political thought (The Lucretian Moment: Lucretius and the Politics of Early Modernity), the other on imperial republics (The Tragedy of an Imperial Republic). He is also the Director of the College of Letters and Science Honors Program.

Recent Courses:

PS 160: Introduction to Political Theory Fall 2024-2025 
PS 932: Reading Machiavelli Fall 2024-2025 
PS 463: Deception and Politics Spring 2023-2024 
ILS 400: Individualism in 19th Century American Literature Spring 2023-2024 
PS 400: Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Idea of American Fall 2023-2024 

Recent Publications: 

Kapust, Daniel J. and Brandon Turner. “‘A Great and Honest Hive’: Mandeville’s Subversion of
the Classical Apiary.” Revista de Filosofia Moderna e Contemporânea: Dossiê “Bernard
Mandeville.” Edited by Bruno Costa Simoes. 10.3.2024. 113-136.

Kapust, Daniel J. “Three Images of Rome: Republicanism, History, and the American Experiment in
Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American 
Revolution.” In Regards croisés sur la Rome ancienne et les Lumières. Edited by Ida Gilda
Mastrorosa. Paris: Classiques Garnier. 2023. 183-201.

Kapust, Daniel J. “Plague and the Leviathan.” Hobbes Studies. Published online, October 2023.

Kapust, Daniel J. “The Society of the Cincinnati and Exemplarity in Late 18th-century America.”
Special issue of Polis: The Journal for Greek and Roman Political Thought. 40.1. 2023. 128-Schwartz, Rachel and Daniel J. Kapust “‘ToMakeMen Believe Their Rebellion Just”: Thomas
Hobbes and the Study of Civil War.” Polity. 54.2. 2022.

Kapust, Daniel J. “Cicero and 18th Century Political Thought.” In the Cambridge Companion to
Cicero’s Philosophy. Edited by Jed Atkins and Thomas Benatouil. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 2021. 268-283. 

Hear from Professor Kapust on this episode of the 1050 Bascom Podcast!