Ross Dardani-230x345.jpg)
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Contact Information:
[email protected]
484-664-3443
Ettinger Hall 308 E
Courses Taught:
- PSC 101 Introduction to American National Government
- PSC 205 Constitutional Law I
- PSC 207 Constitutional Law II
- PSC 280 Law and Popular Culture
- PSC 286 Law and Society
- PSC 309 Supreme Court and Social Change
Education:
M.A., Ph.D. University of Connecticut
B.A. SUNY New Paltz
Background:
Dr. Ross Dardani completed his undergraduate degree at SUNY New Paltz and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut in the fields of public law and political theory. He is currently a visiting assistant professor in the political science department at Muhlenberg College. His research and teaching interests include law and society, constitutional law, critical race theory, U.S. government and American political thought. He studies how the Supreme Court influences American politics, the manifold ways law matters to ordinary citizens and the societal forces that shape the U.S legal system. He has a particular focus on how the Supreme Court’s decisions involving race relations are influenced by the larger structural forces of U.S. society. He has interned at the Clerk’s Office of the Supreme Court of the United States and worked at the American Bar Association.
Dr. Dardani’s dissertation examines the legal histories of U.S. citizenship legislation for the Pacific unincorporated territories (Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). His dissertation argues that the normative values associated with citizenship were “weaponized” by U.S. lawmakers during the Cold War as propaganda against the Soviet Union. When U.S. policymakers extended citizenship to these areas it allowed the United States to promote its desired image throughout the world by demonstrating the moral superiority of its democratic, capitalist system of government in response to Soviet criticism of American racial discrimination and state-sponsored white supremacy. Dr. Dardani’s dissertation also explores questions about the interaction between citizenship and territory throughout U.S. history and scrutinizes the separate and unequal relationship between the U.S. federal government and its territories in comparison to the states.
Professor Dardani has experience teaching a range of courses in public law and political theory. Some classes he has taught include: Law and Society, Punishment and Crime, Judiciary in the American Political Process, Introduction to Political Theory and various courses on constitutional law. His current research interests involve examining the political, cultural and economic forces shaping the U.S. criminal justice system and contemporary U.S. immigration politics.
