Carol Nackenoff

Professor of Political Science

An authority on American politics, Prof. Nackenoff has a strong interest in the rhetoric of American electoral politics — the kinds of appeals candidates make to voters, the coded language and the symbols they invoke, and the ways in which they rework American myths and stories. She is also well-prepared to address such issues as gender, race, and immigration in elections; the politics of moral values; the impact of elections on the U.S. Supreme Court; and constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Other areas of interest include the future of the major parties, party realignment and party decomposition. Prof. Nackenoff received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1980 and was on the faculties of Bard College and Rutgers University before coming to Swarthmore in 1992. She is the author of The Fictional Republic: Horatio Alger, Jr., and American Political Discourse (Oxford University Press, 1994).