Associate Professor of Political Science
Department Chair
Biography
Diana Boros is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Political Theory in the SMCM Department of Political Science. Her research is focused on the intersections of art and politics, especially public and socially engaged art as a tool of political intervention. She is particularly interested in how interactive, collaborative artistic experiences, and enlivening, inclusive public spaces, can energize everyday life, encourage empathy, and strengthen democracy. She is inspired by the ideas found in the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, 20th century French philosophy, feminist political theory, democratic theory, and American political thought.
She has published two books with Palgrave Macmillan: Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Public and Interactive Art to Political Life in America, and Re-Imagining Public Space: The Frankfurt School in the 21st Century (with James M. Glass). While at SMCM, she has been awarded two prestigious honors: the Norton T. Dodge Award for Scholarly and Creative Achievement by Junior Faculty, and the Faculty Student Life Award. Previously, she worked for the United States Senate, as well as for several U.S Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, and was also teaching professor of political science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where she taught courses in American political thought, the political theory of gender, and jurisprudence.
She is currently working on two book projects. One with Mark Cooper titled Social Engagement in Art: Lessons of Collaboration for Political Life (Routledge), and one with David M. Goodman & Michael Mookie Manalili titled Aesthetics Ethics: Towards a Moral Imagination (Routledge).
She is also creator and host of the podcast/video series titled “Hosting Art”, supported by both the Guestbook project and the Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics at Boston College.
Episodes can be found here: https://guestbookproject.org/hosting-art/.
Education
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B.A. at Rutgers University, New Brunswick,
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M.A. at University of Maryland, College Park,
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Ph.D. at University of Maryland, College Park,
Spotlight
- Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Public and Interactive Art to Political Life in America
View on Amazon.com » Employing political philosophy to argue the need for social and public art projects to be an increasing part of the everyday lives of Americans, Boros creates a new synthesis of philosophical ideas to support the vital political value of public art. Diverse and ever-expanding expressions of art in the public provide a dialectical alternative to the deadening effects of normalization and the conformity and complacency it yields. The author endeavors to add to the ongoing discussions regarding the foundations of democracy and civic engagement, and promotes public art as a way to re-invigorate our everyday public experiences, and to re-engage people in critical self-awareness, as well as in their communities.
Reviews
"Creative Rebellion for the Twenty-First Century argues convincingly that contemporary American society is in need of imaginative public art that will inspire a creative, contrapuntal mindset among our citizens. The book offers an authoritative analysis of important political thinkers and cultural critics who have made inroads in that direction. Boros believes in the healing power of transformative public art, and in this compelling and needed work proves herself to be a talented writer who can convey complicated ideas in a lucid manner." - Mary Caputi, professor of Political Theory at California State University, Long Beach "By speaking to the possibility that art, specifically public art, can inspire the formation of new forms of democratic political participation and community, Diana Boros importantly contributes to the growing body of significant literature on political theory and aesthetics, politics, and art. Her argument helps like-minded theorists to counter-balance the one-sided and by now very questionable thesis that the artistic media of a democratic culture serves only to perpetuate the status-quo." - Morton Schoolman, professor of Political Science, State University of New York at Albany "Diana Boros wrote a passionate and thoughtful plea for a new aesthetics of the public spaces in our lives, for endowing our everyday experiences with a thorough and enriching meaning. Erudite and captivating, this book invites the reader to abandon long-held stereotypes and engage in vibrantly new perspectives on art, politics, modernity, revolt, and the assertion of an authentic subjectivity." - Vladimir Tismaneanu, professor of Comparative Politics, University of Maryland
- Re-Imagining Public Space: The Frankfurt School in the 21st Century<
View on Amazon.com » Public space, both literally and figuratively, is foundationally important to political life. From Socratic lectures in the public forum, to Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, public spaces have long played host to political discussion and protest. This book revolves around the ardent belief that we are in need of a reconsideration of the experience of public space in the face of the current demands and challenges of public life. If democracy is indeed less a governmental structure, and more “things that people do”, then the people need spaces open, available, and liberated in which to perform their acts. We need fresh approaches to the use and conditions of our communal spaces so that they can reflect ever-increasing perspectives while encouraging civic engagement as well as individual liberation and empowerment.
Reviews
"Reclaiming the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, this volume breathes new life into the now familiar debate over the privatization, commodification, and commercialization of democratic public space. The essays vividly capture the late modern predicament of a culture that is being entertained to death while its already greatly attenuated spaces for practices of collective critique vanish. The authors show that there is no easy solution, but that there are still genuinely insightful ways of grasping and addressing the problem." - Linda Zerilli, University of Chicago "While reminding us of its vital importance to a democratic society, Boros and Glass have assembled a collection of essays that make a unique and defining contribution to newly conceptualizing, for our age, the meaning of public space, the public sphere, the idea of the public itself, all of which have not received the attention they deserve in recent contemporary political theory. Re-Imagining Public Space is a clarion call to refocus our intellectual energies on what is fundamental and indispensable to a democratic form of life." - Morton Schoolman, State University of New York at Albany