Jeremy Fortier

Jeremy Fortier’s work concerns how people arrive at and justify their political positions while remaining aware of their cognitive limits, biases, and past failures of judgment. His research has focused on the autobiographical or self-reflective writings of authors who significantly revised their positions over the course of their careers. Prior to Ohio State, Fortier held faculty appointments at Colgate University, Claremont McKenna College, and the City College of New York. That background informs his thinking about how different institutional contexts shape curriculum and learning. His most recent article, “Why to be a Civic Constitutionalist,” argues that constitutional politics are an essential vehicle of popular understanding and political education.

Select Publications

“Why to be a Civic Constitutionalist,” Critical Review 36: 199-221. 

“‘To Affirm While Resisting’: Ralph Ellison and Friedrich Nietzsche on Overcoming History” in Nietzsche and Politicized Identities, edited by Rebecca Bamford & Allison Merrick (SUNY Press, 2024).

“Languages of Freedom: Danielle Allen on W.E.B. Du Bois and the Declaration of Independence,” American Political Thought 10: 271-282.

The Challenge of Nietzsche: How to Approach His Thought. University of Chicago Press.

• A Seminary Co-Op Notable Book of 2020.
• Author-meets-critics symposium in The Review of Politics 83: 398-417.
• Interviews about the book for The Los Angeles Review of Books and The Political Theory Review podcast.

“On Steven Pinker’s Hobbesian Liberalism,” Polity 50: 460-484.

“Can Liberalism Lose the Enlightenment?” Journal of Politics 72: 1003-1013.