Bernard Yack

Lerman Neubauer Professor of Democracy and Public Policy

Departments/Programs

German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature
Politics

Degrees

Harvard University, Ph.D.
University of Toronto, B.A.

Expertise

Political theory. History of political thought. Nationalism. Cultural pluralism.
Democratic Theory

Profile

Bernard Yack is a political theorist who has published widely on both contemporary issues and
major figures in the history of political thought. He is best known for his most recent book on nationalism
(Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community) and his earlier books on modern radicalism
(The Longing for Total Revolution) and Aristotelian Political Thought (The Problems of a Political
Animal). He is currently working on a book about moral pluralism titled, "The Faces of Moral
Pluralism: Five Portraits from World Literature."

Courses Taught

POL	10a	Introduction to Political Theory
POL	186b	Classical Political Thought
POL	187b	Conservative Political Thought
POL	189a	Marx, Nietzsche, and Twentieth-Century Radicalism
POL	192b	Seminar: Topics in Law and Political Theory
POL	211a	Graduate Seminar: Political Theory
POL	340d	Proseminar

Scholarship

Yack, Bernard. ""Shklar's Montaigne: A Genealogy of Liberal Morals"." Between Utopia and Realism: The Political Thought of Judith Shklar. Ed. Samantha Ashenden and Andreas Hess. Philadelphia: Penn State Press, 2019. Chapter 4. (forthcoming)

Yack, Bernard. "Loyalty versus Fidelity: A Study in Moral Pluralism." Social Research 86. (2019): 671-94. (forthcoming)

Yack, Bernard. "Of Scribes and Tribes: Progressive Politics and the Populist Challenge." Critical Review 33. (2019): 1-14. (forthcoming)

Yack, Bernard. "Antigone in Hertfordshire: Moral Pluralism in Forster’s Howards End." Res Publica 26. (2020): 489-504.

Yack, Bernard. ""Political Liberalism, Political not Philosophical." Perspectives on Political Science 15. (2017): 146-51.

Yack, Bernard. ""Democracy and the Love of Truth"." Truth and Democracy. Ed. Jeremy Elkins and Andrew Norris. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 165-80.

Yack, Bernard. Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Yack, Bernard. ""Rhetoric and Public Reason: An Aristotelian Theory of Deliberation." Political Theory 34. (2006): 417-38.

Yack, Bernard. The Fetishism of Modernities: Epochal Self-Consciousness in Contemporary Social and Political Thought. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.

Yack, Bernard. Liberalism without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar. University of California Press, 1996.

Yack, Bernard. The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Conflict, and Justice in Aristotelian Political Thought. University of California Press, 1993.

Yack, Bernard. The Longing for Total Revolution: Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche. Princeton University Press, 1986.