Paul Apostolidis

Associate Professor
Judge & Mrs. Timothy A. Paul Chair of Political Science

Office: 315 Maxey Hall
Telephone: (509) 522-4426
E-mail: apostopc@whitman.edu

Curriculum Vitae: CV 3.11

Education: Professor Apostolidis received his A.B. (1986) in Politics from Princeton University and his M.A. (1993) and Ph.D. (1996) in Government from Cornell University.

Research interests: Professor Apostolidis’s research interests include Critical Social and Political Theory, Cultural Studies, Critical Race Theory, Democratic Theory, Feminist Theory, Immigration, Labor, Latino Politics, American Social Movements, the American Christian Right, and Critical Media Studies.

Teaching interests: Professor Apostolidis teaches “Culture, Ideology, Politics,” “American Political Theory,” “Politics and Religion,” and a two-course sequence (“Community-Based Research as Democratic Practice“ and “Public Communication about Community-Based Research“) in which students conduct independent research in partnership with local and regional organizations for Whitman's ongoing project on The State of the State for Washington Latinos. Starting in Fall 2011, Professor Apostolidis will direct Whitman's first-year "Encounters: Ancient and Modern" program.

New book: Professor Apostolidis's most recent book, Breaks in the Chain: What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America About Democracy, was published in Fall 2010 by the University of Minnesota Press. The book explores how immigrant workers’ stories about their life experiences yield novel conceptions of racial and class domination and enable opposition to these power-formations. Breaks in the Chain employs concepts from Foucault and Gramsci to analyze interviews with Mexican immigrant meatpackers who waged struggles to democratize their union and workplace. Apostolidis argues that through their narratives, everyday practices, and organizing efforts, immigrant workers facilitate neoliberal hegemony based on racial biopolitics but also generate opposition to this regime of power.

---Listen to a podcast of his lecture at City Club of Portland about 'The Politics of Immigration, Labor, and Food,' based on the book.

---See an interview about the book with Princeton Alumni Weekly and post your blog response.

Current research: Professor Apostolidis is studying political orientations and working conditions among Latin American migrant day laborers in US cities. This project is based on collaborative research with the CASA Latina (Seattle) and VOZ (Portland) workers' centers. What can we learn about the current global crisis of capitalism and the prospects for opposing neoliberalism by viewing the crisis from the vantage point of day laborers? This project engages the work of Moishe Postone, David Harvey, and Dipesh Chakrabarty to theorize the aspects of time, space, and race (respectively) for migrant day labor in the midst of world economic crisis and US neo-nativism.

Books:

       Breaks in the Chain: What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America about Democracy

Journal articles and published essays; Professor Apostolidis’s articles on critical social theory, immigrant workers, feminist theory, democratic theory, and the Christian Right have appeared or are forthcoming in Constellations, Theory & Event, Signs, Philosophy & Social Criticism, The Journal of Power, Historical Reflections/Reflexiones Historique, Réseaux, and Political Research Quarterly. He also is a contributor to the edited volumes Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno (ed. R. Heberle), Political Theory and Cultural Studies (ed. J. Dean), and The Radio Reader (ed. M. Hilmes and J. Loviglio).