Undergraduate Vice Chair & Associate Professor
McGill/Columbia University

Homepage

Office: 3347 Bunche Hall
Phone: (310) 825-1064
Fax: (310) 825-0778
E-mail: bwalker@polisci.ucla.edu

Mailing Address:
UCLA Department of Political Science
4289 Bunche Hall
Box 951472
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472

Curriculum Vitae

Class Websites

Field:

Political Theory

Research Interests:
Brian Walker studied at McGill University (BA and MA) with Charles Taylor and James Tully where his research focused on critical theory (especially Nietzsche, Marx, Walter Benjamin and Foucault) and on multiculturalism. At Columbia University, during his Ph.D. studies, he began to shift his focus to Anglo-American analytic political thinking (dissertation on Rawls and Habermas) and to an engagement with the history of United States political thinking.

Professor Walker's recent research has focused on comparative political theory, especially on the comparison of U. S. and Chinese political thinking. For example the book Maverick Pathways/Model Citizens: Cultivation Thinking Through Thoreau's Confucian Notebook uses Thoreau transcriptions of Confucian texts (especially the notebook from which Thoreau quarried the Confucian quotations used in Walden) as a springboard for comparing Confucian and American ways of thinking about individuality, culture and public service.

Notes:
Walker's undergraduate classes, which received UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001, are designed in line with cultivation thinking as pedagogical and political paradigm. The core idea in cultivation thinking is that by extending our practical knowledge and ethical imagination we lay the foundations for improvements in the polity: the only way to lay the foundation for civic improvement is to promote better selves and a wiser culture. Walker's classes are designed to help students set down a reliable foundation for this work. His version of PS10: An Introduction to Political Theory, (taught every second year) uses Aristotle, Confucius, Mill and Thoreau to spell out the connections between cultivation, individuality, learning and the maintenance of constitutional government. The follow-up course PS 115C, informally titled "Seven Pathways to Citizenship," uses case studies and historical examples to explore different modalities or "pathways" of citizenship: the public servant; the enlightened capitalist (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett); the environmental or civil right activist; the soldier. Finally 114B, United States Political Thinking After 1865, explores the pros and cons of the main ideological positions in U.S. intellectual life and introduces students to the rich history of U.S. political thinking.

All these classes strive to be ideologically even-handed: to alternate liberal and conservative perspectives; to let students make up their own minds about their political beliefs. Where they are not agnostic is with regard to ethical method and learning. It is assumed in all these classes that learning, self-cultivation and the exploration of philosophical principles is the best possible use of undergraduate time.

At the graduate level Dr. Walker teaches courses on Chinese political philosophy (Chinese Political Thought in English Translation), on Anglo-American analytic philosophy (Rawls and his Critics), on critical theory (The Frankfurt School Thinkers as Readers of Max Weber), and the philosophy of social science (Frameworks for Political Inquiry: Classics in Philosophy of the Social Science). He also teaches business ethics (Making Decisions, Creating Character; Resources and Method in Business Ethics) to MBA- and Executive MBA- students in UCLA's Anderson Business School.

Future graduate seminars will focus on land-use issues in American political theory, on U.S. radicalism from Henry George to Noam Chomsky, on the business corporation in U.S. political theory and on 19th century Chinese political thinking.

Brian Walker is currently the political science department's Vice-Chair for Undergraduate Studies. His class 115C Citizenship and Public Service was constructed at the request of the new UCLA Civic Engagement Minor to serve as core course.

Selected Publications: