Laura Grattan
Jane Bishop '51 Associate Professor of Political Science
Researches and teaches political theory, with a focus on grassroots organizing and the politics of race, ethnicity, and culture.
My research is at the intersection of democratic theory and practice, focusing on grassroots politics, social movements, and critical studies of race and culture. My book, Populism’s Power: Radical Grassroots Democracy in America, analyzes populist rhetoric and organizing in popular culture and in historical and contemporary social movements (including the nineteenth-century People’s Party, the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and DREAM Act and UndocuQueer organizing). Although scholars and pundits dismiss populism as episodic and reactionary, I argue that the resurgence of grassroots populism in the twenty-first century can play a key role in democratizing politics by cultivating popular power across lines of class, race, nationality, gender, and sexuality. My current research focuses on struggles to transform democracy from the extreme margins of society, by examining movements that are resisting the carceral state—or, what activists variably call the police state, prison nation, or deportation nation. I am investigating radical imagining in movements such as the Movement for Black Lives, prison abolition, and #Not1More Deportation, which are generating alternatives to the colorblind ideology and practices that have produced and sustained the carceral state in the U.S.
I teach courses in political theory, including introductory courses such as Neoliberalism and Its Critics and Political Action and Dissent and advanced courses such as Race and Political Theory, Grassroots Organizing, and Topics in American Political Thought (currently focusing on the carceral state in the US). I believe that political theory is not only a practice of trying to see the world differently than we typically do; it can also be a revolutionary activity. Because of this, I encourage students to practice political theory as an activity that is tied to concrete contexts, everyday lives, and possibilities for social change.
My research and teaching are animated by years of community organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation in Durham, N.C., and by my longtime association the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Through my work with the latter, I am co-editor, with John Dedrick and Harris Dientsfrey, of Deliberation and the Work of Higher Education: Innovations for the Classroom, Campus, and Community, which explores issues and practices of civic engagement among college students. At Wellesley, I am co-director of the Project on Public Leadership and Action, an initiative led by faculty who are committed to action-oriented and public facing research.
Education
- B.A., College of William and Mary
- M.A., Duke University
- Ph.D., Duke University
Current and upcoming courses
Police and prison reform have become bipartisan issues in the United States. But this emerging consensus follows historical and ongoing movements to resist policing and prison—from the Black Panther Party, to the prison abolition movement, to the Movement for Black Lives. This course investigates recurring themes in prison and police resistance since the 1960s: the origins of policing and prisons in colonialism and slavery; the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability in both punishment and resistance; theories of politics in captivity; and visions of freedom, justice, and democracy beyond police and prisons. Throughout the course, we will evaluate the strengths and limits of current reform initiatives in light of these readings. Authors may include George Jackson, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, contemporary prison writers, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Mariame Kaba, Andrea Ritchie, Victoria Law, and Dean Spade.
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Neoliberalism and its Critics
POL4249
Neoliberalism has been tied to everything from a decline in public life to the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the U.S. What is new about neoliberalism compared to earlier forms of capitalism and liberalism? How has neoliberalism reshaped politics and citizenship? How has it impacted groups across intersections of class, race, and gender, and how have movements on the right and left sought to resist it? Is neoliberalism essential to democratic freedom as supporters promise, or does it signal the demise of democracy as critics warn? Authors may include Milton Friedman, Wendy Brown, Bonnie Honig, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and J.K. Gibson-Graham. -
Seminar: Grassroots Organizing
POL4311
An introduction to the theory and practice of grassroots organizing for social change. Learning will take two concurrent paths. In class, we will examine what organizing is and how it has historically played a role in social change. We will ask how organizers: use storytelling to motivate action; analyze power, devise theories of change, and craft creative strategies; develop capacities, resources, relationships, and institutions to build collective power; and facilitate diverse groups in contexts marked by entrenched histories of oppression. Outside class, students will engage in a hands-on organizing project of their own choosing in which they must organize a group of people on or off campus to achieve a common goal. (EDUC 311 and POL4 311 are cross-listed courses.)