Faculty

zev trachtenberg

Zev Trachtenberg Associate Professor
Ph.D., Columbia
Research areas: Social and Political Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, Rousseau

610 Dale Hall Tower
(405) 325-6811
ztrachtenberg@ou.edu
office hours

My current research concerns environmental political theory, and Rousseau’s views of the human presence in nature. 

The former interest grew out of my participation in a multidisciplinary team that proposed a policymaking process for managing the Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma.  A central commitment of the project was to incorporate the views of local residents and other stakeholders in the watershed.  On the basis of that experience I joined another multidisciplinary team that produced the book Swimming Upstream: Collaborative Approaches to Watershed Management.  I contributed a chapter that explains how stakeholder participation contributes to the legitimacy of watershed policy, in terms of the central political values of welfare, rights, and justice.  As an outgrowth of my work on stakeholder participation I have begun to consider the topic of environmental citizenship more generally.  I regard that notion as highly complex, in light of the widely varied opportunities for political activity environmental problems present.  I am especially interested in the role of governance in environmental citizenship—and in the way the features of institutions contribute to the abilities of people to participate effectively in environmental governance.  I am also interested in the role of judgment in the exercise of environmental citizenship—and in the function of examples in the cultivation of political judgment.

My interest in Rousseau on humans in nature grows out of my longstanding work on Rousseau.  My dissertation explored Rousseau’s view of the role of culture in the political life of society; it was published as Making Citizens: Rousseau‘s Political Theory of Culture.  In it I analyze Rousseau's conception of the general will in order to characterize the attitude of civic virtue he believes individuals must have to cooperate in society.  For Rousseau, culture either fosters or discourages civic virtue.  However, while the cultural institutions he endorses would motivate citizens to obey the law, they would not prepare citizens to help frame it.  I conclude, therefore, that Rousseau's view of culture works against his account of legitimacy, that his political theory as a whole is inconsistent.  I have continued to publish on a variety of topics related to Rousseau.  Most recently, I have begun to merge my interests in environmental issues and Rousseau by exploring Rousseau’s writings on how human beings inhabit the landscape.  I am particularly interested in two themes that emerge from his work.  He treats natural areas as a kind of refuge into which people can escape the alienation induced by life in society.  But he also argues for a kind of republican agrarianism, by which the proper use of the landscape contributes to the proper political life of the state.  I will consider these and other themes in Rousseau’s writings, and their complicated interrelations.

Courses (recent or upcoming):

  • 1013 ‘Introduction to Philosophy.‘  Taught online, Spring 2009.  Honors section last taught Fall 2007.
  • 3713 ‘History of Social and Political Philosophy.‘  Last taught, Fall 2007.
  • 3733 ‘Religion in Political Theory.'  Last taught, Spring 2008.
  • 4713/5713 ‘Survey of Social and Political Philosophy.‘  Last taught, Spring 2007.
  • 6793 Seminar in Social and Political Philosophy.‘  Topic varies.  Last taught, Spring 2008—topic: Religion in Political Theory.

Selected publications:

Click here for full CV (.pdf)

Swimming Upstream: Collaborative Approaches to Watershed Management, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.  Co-edited with Paul Sabatier, William Focht, Mark Lubell, Arnold Vedlitz, and Marty Matlock.   Primary author, with William Focht, of chapter: ‘Legitimacy and Watershed Collaborations: The Role of Public Participation.‘ (.pdf) 

Making Citizens: Rousseau‘s Political Theory of Culture,  London: Routledge, 1993. 

‘Civic Fanaticism and the Dynamics of Pity,‘ in Rousseau and l’Infame, ed. John Scott and Ourida Mostefai, Amsterdam: Rodopi, forthcoming. (.pdf)

‘The Exile and the Moss-trooper: Rousseau and Thoreau on Walking in
Nature,’ SVEC 2008:03, The Nature of Rousseau’s ‘Rêveries,’ (2008), pp. 209-222. (.pdf)

‘Generality, Efficiency, and Neutrality: Must Laws Be General to Be Legitimate?‘, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 1 (2001), pp. 26-50. (.pdf)

Works in progress: 

Under consideration: ‘Complex Green Citizenship,’ by Environmental Politics.  (.pdf)

Current writing project: ‘Rousseau’s Land Ethic,’ for submission to the Rousseau Association biannual conference.