Biography
Robert E. Watkins, PhD is Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. He is a political theorist with broad and interdisciplinary interests in the intersection of politics and culture, exploring social and political tensions between independence and dependence, between ideas of liberal autonomy and realities of situated subjectivity. He is author of Freedom and Vegeance on Screen: Precarious Life and the Politics of Subjectivity (I.B. Tauris, 2016), a book that examines a selection of contemporary feature films that illuminate precarious lives and the ways in which individual subjects are always already dependent upon and acting in contexts not of their own choosing. He has published articles and reivews in Theory and Event, History of the Human Sciences, Perspectives on Politics, New Political Science, Contemporary Political Theory, and Political Theory.
Rob teaches courses in political science, including “Political Philosophy,” “Equality and Justice,” and “Power and Freedom on Screen.”
Instructional Areas
Political Theory, Cultural Studies, American Politics
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Political Theory, Cultural Theory, Film Studies
Degrees
B.A., Political Science Johns Hopkins University 1996
M.A., Political Science University of Pennsylvania 1999
Ph.D., Political Science University of Pennsylvania 2004