Faculty
Andras Boros-Kazai (1989), international relations, adjunct associate professor
B.A., University of Pittsburgh; M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University
EMAIL: (boroka@beloit.edu)
Andras Boros-Kazai is a native of Budapest, Hungary. He came to the United States in 1957 and earned his citizenship with five years of service in the U.S. Army (three of which he spent in Southeast Asia). He majored in English and Political Science at Kent State University and the University of Pittsburgh while working full-time as a concrete-maker, administrative assistant, bartender and jazz drummer. He earned graduate training in Area Studies at Indiana University, and earned a Ph.D. in History in 1982. Since 1975, Andras has taught courses in revolution, empire and ethnicity-nationalism, Central European, Central Asian and Balkan history, film in the socio-historical context as well as Hungarian language and culture at Indiana University, Ohio Northern University, University of South Dakota and at Defense Intelligence Institutions. Since 1989 he has been a part-time employee of Beloit College, teaching primarily interdisciplinary and First-Year Initiatives seminars. Andras conducts research in cultural history, ethnicity, cinema studies and immigration. His activities include consulting (AT&T, United Parcel Service and the courts) and translation (three plays, five volumes of fiction/non-fiction and numerous items for the U.S. government, academic publishers and research institutions). His spouse, Mary, is the Registrar at Beloit College.
Jill Budny, (2009), political science, assistant professor
B.A., Marquette University; M.A., Fordham University; Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Visiting Assistant Professor Jill Budny joined the Beloit College faculty in 2009 and teaches courses in political theory, public law, American government, and women’s and gender studies. She is also serving as chair of the Legal Studies program for 2011-2012. She received her Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Notre Dame in 2009. She earned a B.A. in philosophy and English from Marquette University, as well as an M.A. in political theory from Fordham University. Her primary research interests include ancient Greek and early modern political thought, and she has also taught courses at Marquette University and Alverno College.
Ann Davies, (1997), political science, associate professor, provost and dean of the college
B.A., Kenyon College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago
EMAIL: (daviesa@beloit.edu)
Associate Professor Ann Davies teaches courses in political theory and public law. She serves as a pre-law advisor and contributes to the Legal Studies program. Dr. Davies is also provost and dean of the college effective fall 2009.
In her research, Ann specializes in liberal political thought and its reflection in modern U.S. jurisprudence. Her recent publications include "In Law More than in Life? Liberalism, Reason and Religion in Public Schools." Rhetoric and Public Affairs 9:3 (Fall 2006) and "Modernity and the State: Enlightenment, Liberalism, and Political Development in the United States" in New Approaches to Comparative Politics: Insights from Political Theory (Ed. Jennifer S. Holmes, Lexington Books, 2003). Her most recent conference presentations have focused on liberalism and the emotions as well as liberal theory's treatment of coercion within political systems.
Beth Dougherty, (1996), chair, international relations, professor
B.A., Chatham College; M.A., Ph.D., University of Virginia
EMAIL: (doughert@beloit.edu)
Beth K. Dougherty is Manger Professor of International Relations and Professor of Political Science. She received her MA and PhD in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and did her undergraduate work at Chatham College (Pittsburgh, PA) where she majored in political science. She joined the Beloit faculty in 1996 and teaches a broad range of international politics courses, including Middle East politics, African conflicts, human rights, and U.S. foreign policy. She has chaired the international relations program since 1996, and is currently the chair of the African Studies minor.
Her current research focuses on transitional justice mechanisms such as international criminal tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions. A 2003 Fulbright Scholar to Denmark, she spent four months at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen conducting research on international justice issues. She made three trips to Sierra Leone between 2003-2005 to follow the work of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
She has traveled extensively in the Middle East and Africa, and frequently teaches summer school at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey. She has attended faculty seminars in Turkey (2000), Ghana (2001), Jordan (2004), Cambodia/Vietnam (2006), and Botswana (2008). Her other professional travel includes Eritrea, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Oman, Senegal, South Africa, and Syria.
She has published on a wide range of subjects, including Iraq, transitional justice in Sierra Leone and Iraq, ethnic conflict, and pedagogy. Her articles have appeared in International Affairs, Security Studies, Middle East Policy, African Studies Quarterly, Active Learning in Higher Education, PS: Political Science, and International Studies Perspectives. She and Edmund Ghareeb are the co-authors of A Historical Dictionary of Iraq, which was named a Best Reference Source in 2004 by Library Journal.
Dougherty has received both campus and national awards for teaching: the 1999 Underkofler Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (Beloit College), and the 2001 Rowman and Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political Science, awarded through the American Political Science Association.
Georgia Duerst-Lahti, (1986), chair, political science, professor
B.S., University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; M.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
WEBSITE
EMAIL: (duerstgj@beloit.edu)
Georgia Duerst-Lahti is Professor of Political Science and a faculty member of the Women's and Gender Studies Program. She received her MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in Political Science and did her undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Since 2001, she has been faculty for an annual seminar on women in public leadership, which is jointly sponsored by Wisconsin Women In Government and the La Follette School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She spent her recent sabbatical at the UW, with appointments in political science, the La Follette School, and Women's Studies.
She joined the Beloit College in 1986 and teaches courses in U.S. government, including those related to political parties and elections, presidency, congress, public leadership, media, and women and gender. Her courses regularly contribute to the American Studies Minor and Environmental Studies, as well as the Women's and Gender Studies curriculum. She incorporates a global perspective into all of her courses.
During her time at Beloit College, she has held many administrative positions. She served as Chair of Women's Studies 1987-1990 and again 1997-8 and as Chair of the Department of Political Science from 2000-05. From 1993-7, she worked as Associate Dean of the College, with duties that have included directing the First-Year Initiatives and Sophomore Year Program, heading Computer Services as it reorganized, acting as Interim Director of the Beloit College Museums, and Chairing the Interdisciplinary Studies Program. She also has served as a special assistant to the Vice President of Academic Affairs to help develop stronger departments.
Duerst-Lahti is a frequent guest expert and analyst for public radio, regularly contributing to the "Week In Review" program with Joy Cardine. She also regularly contributes to newspapers and web sources, especially about campaigns and elections. During 2007, she began to participate in the U.S. State Department Speaker Program, as an expert on women and gender politics, serving in Serbia and Albania.
In professional associations, she has been elected as President of the Midwest Women's Caucus for Political Science and the President of the national Women's Caucus for Political Science. She was appointed to the Committee on the Status of Women of the American Political Science Association and the Executive Council of the Midwest Political Science Association. She also has been very active in many women's political activities including Wisconsin Women's Equals Prosperity (WW=P), headed by Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton, and the National Women's Political Caucus where she served as Wisconsin state chair and on its national executive committee. From 1998-2003, she was elected to the Board of the Evansville Community School District, and served as its vice president for three years. She continues to serve on the executive board of the Evansville Initiative, a civic betterment group determined to foster progressive approaches to energy, and is a member of the Evansville Public Benefits Committee, which distributes funds for energy conservation.
Her research interests center on the gendering of political institutions and on gender in campaigns. Recent publications include a book, Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy (Lynne Reinner, 2007) co-authored with Cathy Johnson and Noelle Norton. Other contributions include a chapter on masculinity on the campaign trail in Rethinking Madame President and a chapter on masculinity in the presidential election, in Gender and the Election 2004, Susan Carroll and Richard Fox, editors. Her research appears in several journals, including Sex Roles, Women and Politics, and Political Science Quarterly. Her best-known work continues to be Gender Power, Leadership, and Government, with Rita Mae Kelly, published by University of Michigan Press. She continues researching gender and race in the presidency. Her current major project "Changing Gender, Race, and Leadership of Public Organizations" involves a 20-year comparison through structured interviews with state administrative elites and structural power analysis, employing methodologies consistent with the intersectionality paradigm.
For fun, she raises and arranges flowers and teaches kids how to do this through 4H. She also enjoys photography, collecting art, and daily walks with her dog. She lives in Evansville with her husband, Tris. Her daughter, Elena attends Knox College and her son Alex attends the College of Wooster. She thanks all of her former students who stay in touch, because she really enjoys that too.
Rachel Ellett, (2008), political science, assistant professor
B.A., Sheffield University ( UK); M.A., Ph.D., Northeastern University
WEBSITE
EMAIL: (ellettr@beloit.edu)
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Moat Junior Professor International Studies, Rachel Ellett joined the department in 2008 and teaches courses in international and comparative politics, and African Studies. Courses offered include contemporary African politics, comparative law and courts, promoting democracy and women and politics in the developing world.
Her research interests focus on the politics of eastern and southern Africa and comparative judicial politics. Her dissertation, "Emerging Judicial Power in Transitional Democracies: Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi," is based on fieldwork funded by the National Science Foundation. Her publications include "Re-emergence of The 'Other': Nationalism in Post-Nyerere Tanzania" in Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism.2005 Vol. 32 No. 1-2. In addition to continuing her research agenda on the intersection of law and politics in sub-Saharan Africa, she is currently exploring the ways in which teachers can effectively draw on students' study abroad experiences in the political science classroom.
John Rapp, (1986), political science, professor
B.A., American University; M.A., Indiana University; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
EMAIL: (rappja@beloit.edu)
John Rapp joined the faculty at Beloit College in 1986 where he teaches courses in comparative politics. He founded the Asian Studies program in 1987 and served as its chair for ten years. He also served as chair of the Political Science department from 1996-1999. From 2002-2005 he served as Director of Asian Studies Programming under the first installment of Beloit's Freeman Foundation grant. In 1988-89 he was interim director of the Center for Language Studies, Beloit's summer intensive language program.
His primary teaching interests include Chinese politics, Communist and post-Communist systems, comparative democracies and electoral systems, and Chinese and comparative political thought. He also maintains a strong interest in German and European politics. Besides his regular comparative politics offerings, he teaches courses on comparative dissent, anarchism, and political fiction.
In March 2005 he led a faculty-staff study tour to Hong Kong and Guangdong in the People's Republic of China. In May 2006 he participated in a Beloit faculty-staff study tour to Hungary, and in the summer of 2007 he joined a faculty-staff travel group to China to help inaugurate Beloit's two new exchange programs in Kaifeng and Jinan. He also taught a concentrated mini-course on German politics at Beloit’s former exchange program in Hamburg, Germany in 1999. He presented a paper on “Neo-Anarchist Critiques of the State in the PRC” at the Manchester Worships on Political Theory in Manchester, England in September 2010. He has been selected to participate in several seminars for college professors over the years, including CIEE Faculty Development Seminars in Berlin (June 1990) and Hong Kong (1992), as well as the American Political Science Association (APSA) seminar on Japanese Politics (August 1990). His awards include the Beloit College Mouat Chair for Younger Faculty in International Studies from 1992-96, a faculty sabbatical grant to the University of Michigan in 1992-93 from the Program on Inter-institutional Collaboration in Area Studies (PICAS); a National Endowment for the Humanities Reading Grant for Private College Faculty (which included travel to Hungary) in May-June 1990; and a Pacific Cultural Foundation (PCF) Faculty Research Grant for the Fall of 2000.
His publications include Autocracy and China's Rebel Founding Emperors: Comparing Chairman Mao and Ming Taizu (coauthored with Anita Andrew) (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2000); “Anarchism or Nihilism?: The Buddhist-Influenced Thought of Wu Nengzi,” in Alexandre Christoyannopoulos (ed.), Religious Anarchism: New Perspectives (Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009); “Daoism as Utopian or Accommodationist: Radical Daoism Reexamined in Light of the Guodian Manuscripts,” in Laurence Davis and Ruth Kinna (eds.), Anarchism and Utopianism (University of Manchester Press, 2009); “Clashing Dilemmas: Hong Rengan, Issachar Roberts, and a Taiping ‘Murder’ Mystery,” Journal of Historical Biography 4 (Autumn 2008): 27-58, online at http://www.ufv.ca/jhb/Volume_4/Volume_4_Rapp.pdf; “Utopian, Anti-Utopian, and Dystopian Ideas in Philosophical Daoism,” Comparative Asian Development 2:2 (Fall 2003): 211-231; “Maoism and Anarchism: Mao Zedong's Response to the Anarchist Critique of Marxism,” Anarchist Studies 9 (2001): 3-28; “Daoism and Anarchism Reconsidered,” Anarchist Studies 6: 2 (October 1998): 123-152; and “The Fate of Marxist Democrats in Leninist Party-States: China's Debate on the Asiatic Mode of Production,” Theory and Society 16 (1987): 709-740. He is currently working on a book manuscript, Daoism and Anarchism: Critiques of Centralized State Power in Ancient and Modern China and on a biography project on Issachar J. Roberts, the 19th century southern Baptist China missionary who served as mentor and advisor to the leaders of China’s Taiping rebellion.
Pablo Toral, (2003), political science, associate professor and Mouat Junior Professor of International Studies
B.A., Universidad Complutense (Spain); M.A., Ph.D., Florida International University
EMAIL: toralp@beloit.edu
Pablo Toral, associate professor of international relations, joined the Beloit College faculty in the Fall of 2003. He teaches courses in international political economy, international relations theory, international governance, international relations of Latin America and Europe, peace studies, environmental politics and development. Pablo received his PhD in international relations from Florida International University in 2003. He also holds a BA in journalism and an MA in international studies. His main research interests include multinational enterprises, development, international relations theory and social theory.
His publications include Multinational Enterprises in Latin America since the 1990s (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Latin America's Quest for Globalization: The Role of Spanish Firms (edited with Felix E. Martin. London: Ashgate, 2005) and The Reconquest of the New World. Multinational Enterprises and Spain's Direct Investment in Latin America (London: Ashgate, 2001).