Wilson Carey McWilliams (2 September 1933 – 29 March 2005), son of Carey McWilliams, was a

political scientist Political science is the science, scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of politics, political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated c ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

Biography

McWilliams served in the

11th Airborne Division The 11th Airborne Division ("Arctic Angels") is a United States Army airborne formation, first activated on 25 February 1943, during World War II. Consisting of one parachute and two glider infantry regiments, with supporting troops, the div ...

of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

from 1955–1961, after which he took his Masters and Ph.D. degrees at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. There he studied under

Sheldon Wolin Sheldon Sanford Wolin (; August 4, 1922 – October 21, 2015) was an American political theorist and writer on contemporary politics. A political theorist for fifty years, Wolin became Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, whe ...

, John Schaar and Norman Jacobson, and also recognized the influences of political theorists

Leo Strauss Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...

and

Bertrand de Jouvenel Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins (31 October 1903 – 1 March 1987) was a French philosopher, political economist, and futurist. He taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Manchester, Yale University, ...

. He wrote a Masters thesis on the political realism of

Hans Morgenthau Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition o ...

and

Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America ...

. He was also active in the early stages of the Berkeley

Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...

and the student activist group

SLATE Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

. Prior to teaching at Rutgers University he taught at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

and

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

. He was also a visiting professor at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and

Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), began accepting non-Quakers in 1849, and became coeducational ...

. He came to Yale in the Spring of 1969 with a timely and provocative seminar on "American Radical Thought". At Harvard he taught the evening seminar "American Political Theory in the 19th Century" during the spring of 1998, a popular course attended by several professors including

Harvey Mansfield Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships ...

. As a visiting professor he went out of his way to connect with the students in his courses (and sometimes in nearby bars). McWilliams was the recipient of the John Witherspoon Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, conferred by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, and also served as a Vice-President of the American Political Science Association. Recordings are available of his last class
American Political Thought since the Civil War
which was continued after his death by his daughter, Susan McWilliams Barndt, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of politics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

at the time and currently a professor of politics at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

. At the time of his death, McWilliams had been married for more than 30 years to the psychoanalyst and author Nancy Riley McWilliams. Their daughter Helen McWilliams was the lead singer of

VAGIANT Boston Tijuana Sweetheart (formerly known as VAGIANT and VAGIANT Boston) was an American all-female punk rock band from Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The band was initially formed in 2005 by four employees of the gaming company Harmonix after ...

Writings

McWilliams was author of ''The Idea of Fraternity in America'' (1973, University of California Press), for which he won the National Historical Society prize in 1974. In this book, McWilliams argued that there was an "alternative tradition" to the dominant liberal tradition in America, which he variously traced through the thought of the Puritans, the Anti-federalists, and various major and minor literary figures such as Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and Ellison. He argued that this tradition drew philosophical inspiration from ancient Greek and Christian sources manifested in an emphasis upon community and fraternity, which was properly the means to achieving a form of civic liberty. He contrasted this tradition with the liberal tradition, which conversely held that individual liberty was thought to culminate in political fraternity. A major influence on McWilliams's thought was the book ''

Democracy in America (; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to ''On Democracy in America'', but official English translations are usually simply entitl ...

'' by the French theorist

Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works ...

, and like Tocqueville, McWilliams commended to modern liberal democracy the arts of association and a chastening form of religious faith. McWilliams was also a prolific essayist, whose works appeared in ''

Commonweal Commonweal or common weal may refer to: * Common good, what is shared and beneficial for members of a given community * Common Weal, a Scottish think tank and advocacy group * Commonweal (magazine), ''Commonweal'' (magazine), an American lay-Cath ...

'' and other journals. His essays on American elections from 1976-1998 were collected in two volumes, ''The Politics of Disappointment'' (1995, Chatham House) and ''Beyond the Politics of Disappointment'' (2000, Chatham House). In 2011, two edited collections of his essays were published, co-edited by Patrick J. Deneen and his daughter, Susan J. McWilliams. The books were entitled, respectively,
Redeeming Democracy in America
' (University Press of Kansas, 2011) and
The Democratic Soul: A Wilson Carey McWilliams Reader
' (University Press of Kentucky, 2011).

External links

* Deneen, Patrick
My Teacher, My Friend
''Front Porch Republic'' {{DEFAULTSORT:McWilliams, Wilson Carey Rutgers University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard University staff Oberlin College faculty Haverford College faculty Brooklyn College faculty 1933 births 2005 deaths