Professor Tracy Strong publishes new book with University of Chicago Press

Professor Tracy Strong is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy within Politics & International Relations at the University of Southampton.

His book Learning One’s Native Tongue: Citizenship, Contestation and Conflict in America has now appeared from the University of Chicago Press. It covers the topic of the changing understandings of American citizenship, from the Puritans to the age of social media. Tracy examines conflicts over the meaning of citizenship in the writings and speeches of prominent thinkers and leaders ranging from John Winthrop and Roger Williams to Thomas Jefferson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Franklin Roosevelt. The criteria that define what being a citizen entails change over time and in response to historical developments, and they are thus also often the source of controversy and conflict, as with voting rights for women and African Americans. Strong looks closely at these conflicts and the ensuing changes in the conception of citizenship, paying attention to what difference each change makes and what each particular conception entails socially and politically.