Magicicada, Brood XIV

Alexis Turner

Journal articles

* Explanatory notes

Notes on this list

This is a list of journal articles published in the last 30 days which are relevant to study in the history of political thought. This may seem somewhat self-explanatory, but on closer inspection the reader may find some unusual features (certainly the number of questions or baffled looks I have received when showing this to friends and colleagues indicates that the logic behind this list is, in fact, non-obvious). So, perhaps a few words are in order.

This list attempts to respond to several difficulties I have come up against in doing my work, none of which should seem terribly shocking. One is the tendency of academic work towards parochialism. Another are its tendencies towards elitism and technicization, which on the surface seem contradictory but which are in truth related. The last two are an effort to achieve something vaguely approaching efficiency and an effort to put what is published in (an albeit tiny) context.

Academic work is, and always has been, the province of the elite. That it has opened itself up in the last few decades to try and break out of this tendency should not be perceived as either a) having actually done so or b) being any different than what it has ever done. There are any number of historical examples of political elites recognizing the value in making the borders of their ranks mildly porous — among other things, doing so keeps the natives from getting restless (was that cynical? I'm sorry, studying politics has a tendency to do that to a person). Thinkers as diverse in time and culture as Ibn Khaldun, Alexander the Great, and Thomas Jefferson have all explicitly acknowledged the value of this practice.

The difficulty with this in the current moment is that such porosity is overstated and underavailable. The result is that those who are given the chance to try their hand find the deck stacked against them. They often do not know the subtler rules of the game that make those born into the position carry it out with the ease of breathing. This fosters self-doubt, which creates a tendency to grab on to explicit norms with unmatched ferocity. What are the five best journals? Programs? Scholars? Whose writing style should I copy to be sucessful? What are the exact steps I should use in my methodology? The question of how to do work thus shifts subtly. It is no longer "how can I do the best work?" but rather "how can I do work that others will recognize as the best?" The two questions are deceptively similar, but they are not the same at all. The result of asking the latter is excessive technicization and obsession with "the rules" and neurotic shoring up of disciplinary boundaries, which in turn feeds the very parochialism and elitism that we were attempting to mitigate just a bit in the first place. (This is not to imply that the entrenched elite do not have their own vested interest in maintaining the status quo, nor that obliviousness to the constructed nature of what they do is not a factor. Arguably, both sides have an equal role in creating the dilemma just described.)

My solution to this is baldly simple and probably completely insufficient. This list encompasses a wide range of journals that pertain to the work I do. As someone working in the history of political thought, this obviously includes journals on political theory, history, and philosophy, but it also includes those on the history and philosophy of science, intellectual history, social thought, classics, and politics generally. I also steadfastly refuse to rank these journals publicly. Though the list includes all the "tops" in the field that any self-respecting professional is more or less obliged to read, it also includes those most people have barely heard of and probably a few people wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. This is not merely contrary on my part — I certainly have my own opinions on which of these journals publish quality work and which are mediocre — but I think it is useful to both see what a range of people have to say and also to develop one's own sense of judgement. Discernment and self-confidence, as I understand them, are the only meaningful guards against thoughtless indoctrination and inevitable disciplinary narrowing. It does not mean anything goes, but it does permit scholars to deal with more of the world and sharpen their own creative and critical skills. All scholars are experts, but not all experts are scholars. Which would we prefer in academia?

A somewhat less exciting side effect of refusing to rank, both by drawing on a wide range of journals and also in displaying them by release date rather than a more loaded order, is that one can begin to get a feel for context. What conversations are in vogue at a given time? Who releases what, when? As someone who does history, I find this aspect of the list as constructed appealing.

Finally, this list is updated automatically no more than once a week. This is to discourage the obsessive compulsive need that technology seems to instill in us (me) to neurotically check to see if anything new has happened in the last five minutes....hopefully, with all that newfound free time, I can actually sit quietly and work on synthesizing what I read instead of merely regurgitating it.

For those who are curious, a full list of the journals this is drawn from is available.

Journal list

back to note

  • American Journal of Political Science
  • Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Science
  • Annual Review of Political Science
  • British Journal of the Philosophy of Science
  • Constellations
  • Contemporary Politics
  • Continental Philosophy Review
  • Critical Inquiry
  • Critical Review of International Social & Political Philosophy
  • Critical Social Policy
  • Culture, Theory, & Critique
  • Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
  • Ethics
  • European Journal of Political Research
  • European Journal of Political Theory
  • European Journal of Social Theory
  • History and Theory
  • History of Political Economy
  • Human Studies
  • International Political Science Review
  • ISIS
  • Journal of Applied Philosophy
  • Journal of the History of Ideas
  • Journal of the History of Philosophy
  • Journal of Political Ideologies
  • Journal of Political Philosophy
  • Journal of Social Philosophy
  • Journal of Value Inquiry
  • New Political Science
  • Perspectives on Political Science
  • Phronesis: A Journal of Ancient Philosophy
  • The Philosophical Forum
  • Philosophy and Public Affairs
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy and Social Criticism
  • Philosophy of the Social Sciences
  • Political Quarterly
  • Political Research Quarterly
  • Political Studies
  • Political Theory
  • Politics and Society
  • Politics, Philosophy, and Economics
  • Public Culture
  • Review of International Political Economy
  • Social Science History
  • Telos
  • Theory and Event
  • Theory and Society

The following journals are not currently included because their RSS feeds are malformed. Please contact distributors for the following journals and request that items in their RSS feeds include dates:

  • American Political Science Review
  • British Journal of Political Science
  • Comparative Studies in Society and History
  • Contemporary Political Theory
  • Economics and Philosophy
  • History of Political Thought
  • Journal of Politics
  • Phronesis: A Journal of Ancient Philosophy
  • Philosophy
  • Philosophy in Review
  • Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought
  • Political Science Quarterly
  • Polity
  • PS: Political Science and Politics
  • Review of Politics
  • Social Philosophy and Policy
  • Utilitas