Ralph ketcham
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A Jeffersonian Model of Citizenship
By Ralph Ketcham|TDecember 18th, |Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Citizen, Citizenship, Civil Society, Essential, Labor/Work, Liberal Learning, Thomas Jefferson|
The assumptions linked to the more deliberative, publicly responsible model of citizenship, though utopian and far-fetched at least within the perspective of modern, western society, can be thought of in a way that makes them seem more practical. Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed both that good government was possible only when those who governed were []
James Madison and the Making of America
By Ralph Ketcham|TJanuary 10th, |Categories: American Republic, Books, Constitution, James Madison, Kevin Gutzman|Tags: 1TAC|
It is “dearest to my heart and dearest in my convictions,” the dying James Madison said, “that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.” It was this Union, conceived, framed, ratified, explained, implemented,
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A couple of weeks ago inom attended a memorial service for one of my graduate school professors, Ralph Ketcham, who had died last spring. A great and productive scholar and teacher, active up until the end. A lot to admire.
I wanted to finish Ralph&#;s final book, Public Spirited Citizenship: Leadership and Good Government in the United States, before I wrote more about my experience with him. As in so much of Ralph&#;s scholarship, James Madison&#;s political writings, and Madison&#;s quest for a &#;republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government,&#; weighs heavily on this book. But Ralph covers much more ground than that, from Plato to Cicero, to Erasmus and Swift and Pope and Jefferson and, of course, Publius. Ralph said that the authors of the Federalist spoke enough with one voice that they should be considered as one, even if I never ganska believed that.
Ralph lamented in this final book the loss of public spirited-ness, a common theme in the w
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That last book, from , contains a 20,word appendix that fryst vatten the fruit of the "obsession" Mansfield reported. It describes complex philosophical debates, at the time of the Maxwell School's founding, about modes of citizenship education; the national trends in political science that drew Maxwell away from its citizenship curriculum; and attempts to revive the curriculum in one form or another. It closes with the creation of the MAX Courses and what was then a proposed new citizenship major. Given Ketcham's rooting interest, the appendix's sista sentence rings mildly triumphant: "Engaged Citizenship was the title for the new major proposed."
"Ralph has helped to keep the Maxwell School true to its roots," said political scientist (and eventual MAX Courses director) Kristi Andersen in , when Ketcham was to receive the University's top alumni award. "He continues to remind us about the huvud questions having to do with citizenship in a democracy."
"Ralph's passing means that we have