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Rob Goodman

Assistant Professor
EducationPhD (Political Science): Columbia University
Phone(416) 979-5000 x 556168

Biography

Dr. Rob Goodman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration and a member of the Yeates School of Graduate Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, as well as an MA in Public Policy from George Washington University and a BA in English from Duke University. He was previously an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University, a Core Curriculum instructor and Heyman Center for the Humanities Fellow at Columbia University, and a Research Exchange Fellow at the University of Glasgow.

Before beginning his doctoral studies, Dr. Goodman worked as speechwriter for US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senator Chris Dodd.

Peer-reviewed articles

  • “Preaching to the Choir: Rhetoric and Identity in a Polarized Age” [with Samuel Bagg (Oxford)]. Journal of Politics (forthcoming).
  • "'I Tremble with My Whole Heart': Cicero on the Anxieties of Eloquence." European Journal of Political Theory (forthcoming).
  • "'The Low Principles of Jurisprudence': Legal Indeterminacy in Edmund Burke’s Impeachment of Warren Hastings." The Review of Politics 82:3 (Summer 2020): 1-25.
  • “The Deliberative Sublime: Edmund Burke on Disruptive Speech and Imaginative Judgment.” American Political Science Review 112:2 (May 2018): 267-79.
  • “The Advisor: Counsel, Concealment, and Machiavelli’s Voice.” Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 20:2 (Autumn 2017): 200-23.
  • “Doux Commerce, Jew Commerce: Intolerance and Tolerance in Voltaire and Montesquieu.” History of Political Thought 37:3 (2016): 530-55.
  • “Humility Pills: Building an Ethics of Cognitive Enhancement.” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 39:3 (June 2014): 258-78.
  • “Cognitive Enhancement, Cheating, and Accomplishment.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 20:2 (June 2010): 145-60.

Books

  • Words on Fire: Eloquence and its Conditions.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
  • A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age (with Jimmy Soni).  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
  • Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar (with Jimmy Soni). New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012.

Book Chapters

  • "Advising Trump." Ch 13 in Political Advice: Past, Present and Future, ed. Jacqueline Rose and Colin Kidd, 192-202. London: I.B. Tauris, 2021.

Other Selected Articles

  • “Why the founders added ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  The Atlantic, 25 September 2019.
  • “Decorum Is an Unfashionable Idea, But It Has a Radical Core.” Aeon.  28 September 2018.
  • “The Bit Bomb” (with Jimmy Soni). Aeon.  30 August 2017.
  • “How Information Got Re-Invented” (with Jimmy Soni). Nautilus. 10 August 2017.
  • “The Appeal of Trump to Traditionalists.” The Atlantic. 12 March 2017.
  • “What Trump Taught Us About Democracy. Politico Magazine. 04 January 2017.
  • “Are China’s Leaders Better Than Ours?” Politico Magazine. 27 August 2015.
  • “America’s Hero Problem.” Politico Magazine. 16 January 2015.
  • “How to Be Intoxicated.” Chronicle of Higher Education Review. 05 December 2014.
  • “The Case for a College Admissions Lottery.” The Atlantic. 14 May 2014.
  • “Roman Fever.” Politico Magazine.  03 January 2014.
  • “Fortune’s Fools: On Meritocracy.” Brooklyn Quarterly. 07 November 2013.
  • “The Comforts of the Apocalypse.” Chronicle of Higher Education Review. 19 August 2013.
  • “How Campaign Spending Brought Down the Roman Republic” (with Jimmy Soni). Slate. 26 November 2012.
  • “How the Filibuster Wrecked the Roman Senate—and Could Wreck Ours” (with Jimmy Soni). The Atlantic.  24 March 2011.

Dr. Goodman’s research interests include rhetoric, classics, and the history of political thought. His book manuscript, Eloquence and Its Conditions, investigates the development of models of skilled speech in classical antiquity, as well as their translation into modern institutional settings. It proposes that these models remain a valuable resource for critiquing the current state of political speech.