Professor of Political Science; Associate Chair
Areas of Specialization: Political Theory; Feminist Theory; Queer Theory; Contemporary Democratic Theory; Environmental Political Theory; Law and Politics
Professor Maxwell is Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. She received her B.A. in Religion from Wellesley College and her PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University. She has held fellowships at Cornell University, the Yale Whitney Humanities Center, and the BU Humanities Center.
Professor Maxwell is the author of three books: Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love (Stanford UP, 2025), Insurgent Truth: Chelsea Manning and the Politics of Outsider Truth-Telling (Oxford UP, 2019), and Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes (Oxford UP, 2015). She is also the co-editor of Second Nature: Rethinking Nature Through Politics (Fordham UP, 2014), and the co-author of The Right to Have Rights (Verso, 2018). Her articles have appeared in Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, and Theory and Event, among other venues.
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