Michelle T. Clarke
Associate Professor of Government
My research focuses on the history of republican political thought and debates about the meaning of liberty in ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence. I have a particular interest in Machiavelli's contribution to these debates, together with his enduring legacy in the modern political tradition. I'm drawn to Machiavelli's political thought because it reflects my own sense that political theory, done properly, refuses to abstract from the messy, inconvenient, and often distasteful realities of political life. For Machiavelli, as for me, the work of political theory is to guide us through this world, mindful of the possibility that it may speak to us in a different voice than moral philosophy.
Contact
Department(s)
Government
Education
- B.A. Tufts University
- M.A. Yale University
- M. Phil. Yale University
- Ph.D. Yale University
Selected Publications
Michelle T. Clarke. Machiavelli’s Florentine Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Michelle T. Clarke. "Curing Virtue: Epicureanism and Erotic Fantasy in Machiavelli's Mandragola," Political Theory, forthcoming.
Michelle T. Clarke. "Machiavelli's Virtuous Princes: Rhetoric, Power, and the Politics of Ironic Historiography." Journal of Politics 84, no. 1 (2022): 483-495.
Michelle T. Clarke. “Machiavelli: Menace to Societas” in The Ciceronian Tradition in Political Theory, ed. Daniel Kapust and Gary Remer. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
Works In Progress
Rival Republicanisms: Machiavelli and the Ciceronian Tradition (book project, in progress)
The Oxford History of Political Thought: The Renaissance, 1400-1517 (book project, under contract)
"Ethics and the Supremely Powerful: Epicureanism and the Problem of Political Ambition in Cicero's De finibus 2" (article, in progress)
"Style and the Soul" (article, in progress)