Tamara Metz
Professor of Political Science and Humanities
Chair
Email | 503-777-7299 | Eliot 425
Contemporary political theory, history of political thought, political philosophy.
Ph.D. in Government, Harvard University, 2004. Reed College 2006–.
I teach modern and contemporary (mostly, “western”) political thought and its history, including courses on liberalism and neoliberalism, sex and gender, Hannah Arendt, African American political thought, and constitutional democracy. My current research focuses on connections between care and democratic politics in the neoliberal social formation. In Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State and the Case for Their Divorce (Princeton University Press, 2010), I explored the history of liberal treatment of the relationship between marriage and the state and argued that marriage should be disestablished. I co-edited Justice, Politics, and the Family (Paradigm Press, 2014) and have published work in various edited volumes and journals including Perspectives on Politics, Contemporary Political Theory, Politics & Gender, Social Theory and Practice, Journal of Politics, Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of John Rawls, and The Nation. In addition to my work in political theory, I have a special interest in the pedagogy of thesis advising.
Courses
- Political Science 280 Introduction to Political Theory
- Political Science 386 African American Political Thought
- Political Science 387 American Constitutional Democracy
- Political Science 393 Liberalism and Its Critics
- Political Science 394 Sex, Gender, and Political Theory
- Political Science 395 Illuminations: Politics in Dark Times
- Political Science 396 Neoliberalism and its Critics
- Political Science 398 What is Political Freedom?
- Humanities 110 Introduction to the Humanities
Selected Publications
- “Possessive Familialism and the Crisis of Democracy in the US,” with Nancy J. Hirschmann, Perspectives on Politics, (2026), https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592726106318
- “Marriage,” with Ophelia Vedder, Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of John Rawls, (December 2025).
- “Marriage and the Neoliberal Politics of Care,” Stating the Family: New Directions in American Politics, Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov, eds., Lawrence: University of Kansas Press (2020).
- Justice, Politics, and the Family, edited volume with Daniel Engster, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press (July 2014).
- Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State and the Case for Their Divorce. Princeton: Princeton University Press (2010).