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Lucien Ferguson

Program Area(s):  American Politics; Political Theory; Law and Politics

Regional Specialization(s):  United States

Dissertation Title:

The Spirit of Caste: Recasting the History of Civil Rights

Dissertation Committee:  Erin F. Delaney; Mary G. Dietz (Chair); Paul A. Gowder; Alvin Bernard Tillery, Jr.

Conference Presentation(s): 

  • “Anna Julia Cooper’s Anti-Caste Theory of Human Rights,” American Political Science Association, Montreal, CA, September 2022
  • “Law, Rights, and Abolition: Contesting the Discursive Critique of Rights,” 14th International Critical Theory Conference of Rome, John Felice Rome Center of Loyola University, Rome, Italy, June 2022
  • “Frederick Douglass Caste Theory of Racism,” Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, May 2022
  • “Frederick Douglass and the Spirit of Caste,” Association for Political Theory, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Amherst, MA, November 2021
  • “Frederick Douglass and the Spirit of Caste,” American Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, October 2021
  • “Republicanism, Abstract Domination, and Slavery in the Americas,” The Venice World Multidisciplinary Conference on Republics and Republicanism, Venice International University, Venice, June 2021
  • “The Politics of Anti-Caste: Rethinking the Political Limits of Equality Before the Law,” Midwest Political Science Association, April 2021
  • Paper Response to Professor Ainsley Lesure, “Another World is Possible: Rereading Black Skin, White Masks Phenomenologically,” Graduate Student Political Theory Workshop, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, February 2021
  • “The Spirit of Caste: Caste Critique and the Contestation of Racial Subjection in the United States,” Graduate Student Political Theory Workshop, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, February 2021
  • “The Concept of Civil Rights in the 19th Century,” JD-PhD Seminar, Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, Chicago, IL, June 2020
  • “From Love to Care: Reorienting to the World with Arendt’s Amor Mundi,” Graduate Student Political Theory Workshop, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, May 2019
  • “The Care Crisis in Contemporary Political Theory,” Graduate Student Political
    Theory Workshop at Northwestern University, October 2020
  • “The Concept of Civil Rights in the 19th Century,” JD-PhD Seminar at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, February 2020

Selected Publication(s):

Honors and Award(s): 

  • University Fellowship, Northwestern University, 2022-2023
  • Franke Fellow, Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University, 2021-2022
  • Teaching Assistantship, Center for Legal Studies, Northwestern University, 2020-2021
  • Associate Editor, Northwestern Journal of Human Rights, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University, 2020-2021
  • Law School Scholarship, Northwestern University, 2019-2020
  • Law School Scholarship, Pritzker School of Law, 2018-2019
  • Law and Science Fellow, Pritzker School of Law, 2018-Present
  • Minar Memorial Summer Award, Northwestern University, 2018
  • Graduate Fellow in Legal Studies, Northwestern University, 2018-Present
  • Teaching Assistantship, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, 2017-2018
  • University Fellowship, Northwestern University, 2016-2017
  • John D. Lewis Memorial Prize for Work in Political Theory, Oberlin College, 2013
  • John F. Oberlin Scholarship, Oberlin College, 2009-2013
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