Christine Dunn HENDERSON
Associate Professor of Political Science; Interim Academic Director of Politics, Law and Economics (PLE) major
Christine Dunn Henderson joined SMU in 2019. She is a political theorist who has published extensively on Alexis de Tocqueville, Gustave de Beaumont, French liberalism, and politics and literature. Her edition, as editor and translator, of Tocqueville’s Memoirs on Pauperism and Other Writings (University of Notre Dame Press, 2021) opens a window into Tocqueville’s thinking about economic inequality and the social question. Her most recent publications have focused on Tocqueville and race, the literary structure of Democracy in America, and Tocqueville and gender. She is presently writing a book about the dangers to freedom in the democratic age.
Qualifications
- PhD (Political Science), Boston College, 1997
- A.B. with Honors (Government and French Studies), Smith College, 1989
Research Interests
- Political Theory
- Ancient Political Theory
- Early Modern Political Theory
- Late Modern Political Theory
- Politics and Literature
- American Politics
- The Founding and American Political Thought
Course(s) Taught in SMU
- Big Questions
- Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Beyond
- Fashioning a Nation
- Finding Home in a Globalized World
- Political Theory