Prof. Darren Walhof

Contact

    Associate Professor
    Department of Political Science
    1103 Au Sable Hall
    Grand Valley State University
    1 Campus Drive
    Allendale, MI 49401-9403
    616.331.2835
    walhofd@gvsu.edu

Education

Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Political Science, 1999.
B.A., Calvin College, Political Science, 1991.

Courses

Affirmative Action: Who Wins?
American Government and Politics
American Political Thought
Contemporary Political Thought
Introduction to Liberal Education
Modern Political Thought

Recent Publications

"The Force of Tradition and the History of Political Thought," Fides et Historia 39.1 (2007).

“Friendship, Otherness, and Gadamer’s Politics of Solidarity,” Political Theory 34.5 (2006).

“Bringing the Deliberative Back In: Gadamer on Conversation and Understanding,” Contemporary Political Theory 4.2 (2005).

“The Accusations of Conscience and the Christian Polity in John Calvin’s Political Thought,” History of Political Thought 24.3 (2003): 397-414.

The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History, Rutgers University Press, 2002. Co-edited with Derek Peterson.

Derek Peterson and Darren Walhof, “Rethinking Religion,” in The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History, Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Recent Presentations

“Conceptual History and the Force of Tradition,” Crossroads: Writing Conceptual History beyond the Nation-State, the 9^th Annual International Conference of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group (HPSCG), Uppsala, Sweden, August 24-26, 2006.

“Secular Protestantism: Religion and Politics in the U.S.,” Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Università degli studi di Perugia (Italy), May 18, 2005.

“Gadamer’s Traditional Politics,” Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Oakland, California, March 17-19, 2005.

“We Must Be Out of Our Mind: a Defense of Tradition, Authority, and Prejudice,” (co-authored with Clarence Joldersma), After Worldview Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, September 16-18, 2004.

“Understanding and the Other in Hermeneutical Political Theory,” Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, April 17-19, 2004.

“Solidarity, Friendship, and Practical Reason,” Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon, March 11-13, 2004.

“Political Theory as Practical Philosophy,” Association for Political Theory Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 18-19, 2003.

“Democratic Deliberation and Gadamer’s Phenomenology of Conversation,” Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Chicago, Illinois, October 10-12, 2002.

Biography

I joined the GVSU Department of Political Science in 2003 after teaching first at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and then at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota). I grew up on a dairy farm in southwestern Minnesota and after getting my B.A. returned there (to Minnesota, not the dairy farm) to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota (go Gophers!). My research interests include early modern political thought, philosophical hermeneutics, and religion and politics. Recently I've been writing about the political thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer and have just started a project on "superstition" during the Reformation.