Curriculum Vitae
Education
2018 - Present (Ph.D. Expected May 2025)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Political Science Ph.D. Candidate
2014-2017
Carthage College​
Political Science, BA (Summa Cum Laude)
2013-2014
University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Political Science
Dissertation
Fostering Freedom: Judgment in Early-Modern Liberal Educational and Political Thought
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This project seeks to locate an alternative to personal autonomy—as a guiding standard of liberal education theory—that accommodates the limits of human cognition and the demands of liberal citizenship. To do so, it addresses a neglected early-modern discourse on individual freedom that privileges judgment as a civic-educational outcome. I examine three thinkers—John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith—who each develop a framework for the cultivation of judgment that focuses on the individual’s ability to make informed judgments and engage in self-directed behavior. The theory of judgment and accompanying civic educational model that I develop in this study can serve as a more practical and empirically grounded alternative to personal autonomy in liberal education theory.
Committee: Daniel J. Kapust, Michelle Schwarze, Richard Avramenko, Adam Nelson
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Tennyson, Timothy T. 2022. “Cicero’s Romulus and the Crafting of Historical Exempla.” History of Political Thought, Vol. 43, No. 1: 1-30.
Tennyson, Timothy T. and Michelle Schwarze. 2023. “An Honest Man? Rousseau’s Critique of Locke’s Character Education.” European Journal of Political Theory, https://doi.org/10.1177/14748851231153567
Working Papers
"The 'Twilight of Probability': John Locke on Education for Judgment." (R&R at Review of Politics)
“Adam Smith on Education, Inequality, and Class Division in Commercial Society.” (Under Review)
“Critique of Autonomy as an Educational Ideal in Liberal Theory.”
“Pity, the Sense of Injustice, and the Problem of Inequality in Judith Shklar’s Moral Psychology with Michelle Schwarze. (Under Review)
“Rethinking Machiavelli’s Civic Religion,” with Daniel Kapust.​
Conference Presentations
APT Panel Presenter, “Adam Smith on Education, Inequality, and Class Division in Commercial Society.” Fall 2024
APSA Panel Presenter, “Adam Smith on Education, Inequality, and Class Division in Commercial Society,” Fall 2024
APSA Panel Presenster "Critique of Autonomy as an EducationalIdealin Liberal Theory," Fall 2023 (Virtual)
APSA Panel Presenter “Victims and Cruelty: Shklar and Rousseau on Pity,” Fall 2022
IASS (International Adam Smith Society) Panel Presenter “Adam Smith on Education,” Fall 2021
APSA Panel Presenter “The Limits of a Liberal Education for Autonomy: Rousseau’s Critique of the Lockean Model,” Fall 2021 (Virtual)
MPSA Panel Presenter “Adam Smith on Education,” Spring 2020
Carthage Celebration of Scholars Conference Presenter “On Hobbes’s Treatment of Punishment in Leviathan,” Spring 2017
Carthage Celebration of Scholars Conference Presenter “Assessing the Effects of Laissez-Faire Political Economy on Irish Famine Relief: A Case Study Approach,” Spring 2016
Fellowships and Awards
Graduate Student Research Grant (SRGC), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fall 2024
Scott A. Harris Graduate Writing Scholarship, Summer 2024
Institute for Humane Studies Graduate Sabbatical Grant, Fall 2022
Institute for Humane Studies Fellowship, Summer 2019, Summer 2020, Fall 2021
Political Science Summer Initiative Scholarship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019-22
Guy Black Political Science Graduate Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2018-19
Distinguished Senior Award (Commencement Speaker), Carthage College, 2017
Political Science Department Senior Excellence Award, Carthage College, 2017
Eric H. Olson and Anna Olson-Thom Scholarship, Carthage College, 2016
Full Tuition Transfer Scholarship, Carthage College, 2014
Teaching Experience
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Independent Instructor, "Contemporary American Political Thought," Spring 2025
Independent Instructor, “Education, Inequality, and Citizenship in the History of Political Thought” (PS 461) [Interdisciplinary Seminar in Political Economy, Philosophy and Economics], Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024
Head Teaching Assistant, "Deception and Politics" (PS 463), Fall 2023
Head Teaching Assistant, “History of American Political Thought,” (PS 360), Fall 2021
Head Teaching Assistant, “Introduction to Political Theory,” (PS 160), Spring 2021
Teaching Assistant, “Introduction to Political Theory,” (PS 160), Spring 2020
Additional Teaching Experience
Independent Instructor, Oral English and Western Culture at the Foreign Business and Trade College of Chongqing Normal University, China, 2017-18
Fellow, Writing Center, Carthage College, 2015-17