H N Hirsch APSA Candidate Statement

Career and Accomplishments

H N Hirsch is Professor of Politics and Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College, where he has also served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.  He has held faculty appointments at Harvard and the University of California San Diego, where he served as department chair, and at Macalester College, where he was Distinguished Professor.  He received his B.A. in political science summa cum laude from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton.

Hirsch is the author of two monographs in the field of public law: The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter (1981), and A Theory of Liberty: The Constitution and Minorities (1992).  Most recently he edited The Future of Gay Rights in America (2005), and a series of articles exploring political attitudes in sexual minority communities.  

Hirsch has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation.  His dissertation won the APSA’s Edward S. Corwin Prize, and he has chaired the APSA’s LGBT Status Committee and the nominating committee of the Law and Courts section.  As Dean at Oberlin he was active in planning the Mellon Foundation’s liberal arts initiative.  

Statement of Views

I would be grateful for an opportunity to serve on the APSA Council.  I believe the APSA should be open to a diversity of methodologies and should, where appropriate, encourage interdisciplinary scholarship and exchange.  I would work to make the Association more relevant to every member of the discipline, including those who now find themselves alienated from “official” political science, to continue discussions about improving the annual meeting, and to monitor the success of recent changes, including the launching of our new journal.  Although I am on the Nominating Committee’s slate of candidates, I believe competitive elections are healthy, and would urge the APSA to conduct more of them.