Dr. Kam Shapiro
Associate Professor/Director of Graduate Studies
Office
SCH Schroeder Hall 408B
Office Hours
Tuesdays & Wednesdays 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. & by appointment
Office Phone
Email
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Selected Research
Biography
Kam Shapiro is Associate Professor of Politics and Government at Illinois State University. His work focuses on somatic and aesthetic dimensions of sovereignty and citizenship.
Teaching Interests & Areas
Specific research and teaching interests include Political Philosophy, Democratic Theory, Radical Democracy, Biopolitics, American Political Thought, Political Economy, Public Culture, and Media Politics.
Research Interests & Areas
Research interests include Democratic Theory, Radical Democracy, Violence, Biopolitics, American Political Thought, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, William Wordsworth, Mark Twain, Vilfredo Pareto.
Ph D Political Theory
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
BA Political Science
Reed College
Portland, OR
Student Impact Award
Illinois State University
2024
Book Review
Reviving Habit: Félix Ravaisson's Practical Metaphysics
Kam Shapiro.
(2009), 12, 10.1353/tae.0.0097, Theory & Event
Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation
Kam Shapiro.
(2008), 31, 289-292, 10.5840/teachphil200831332, Teaching Philosophy
Liberal Democracy and the Social Acceleration of Time
Kam Shapiro.
(2005), 3, 360-362, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1537592705320159, Perspectives on Politics
Book, Chapter
Biopolitical Reflections: Cognitive, Aesthetic and Reflexive Mappings of Global Economies
Kam Shapiro.
(2015), pp.203-227, in 'Cultural Transformations of the Public Sphere', Peter Lang
The Myth of the Multitude
Kam Shapiro.
(2004), 289- 314, Empire's New Clothes, Routledge
Encyclopedia
Carl Schmitt
Kam Shapiro.
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought, 6, (2014), DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0916
Violence
Kam Shapiro.
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought (2014), 6, (2014), DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.wbept1023
Presentations
Catastrophe and Sustainable Constellations: Walter Benjamin as a thinker of Ecological Democracy
Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA), Seattle, Washington, April 17, 2025
Ecological Philosophy and Social Differences
J. Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 5, 2024
What Differences Do Trees Make?
J. Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA) Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, April 6, 2023
Geographies of Turbulence: Racialized Gun Violence in Chicago, Real and Imagined
J. Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA) Annual Conference, Portland, OR., March 10, 2022
Destabilizing Racial Democracy: Coloring Outside the Lines in the Detective Fiction of Chester Himes
J. Kam Shapiro.
APSA (American Political Science Association) annual meeting, Online, September 10, 2020
Sensible Redistributions: Racial Justice and Aesthetic Activism in Chicago
J. Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), Washington, D.C., August 30, 2019
‘Posthumanist Entanglements: Language, Trees, and Politics’
Kam Shapiro.
World Humanities Forum, Busan, S. Korea, November 2, 2018
'White Democracy and its Discontents'
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), Boston, MA., September 1, 2018
Contested Derivations: Affective Politics from Pareto to Trump
Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA), San Francisco, CA, March 30, 2018
“American Carnage”: Figuring Race and Violence in Chicago
Kam Shapiro.
'The Changing Contours of American Identity', Seoul, S. Korea, September 23, 2017
‘Racialized Violence in Chicago: Mediating Aesthetics and Institutions’
Kam Shapiro.
Invited Presentation, Seoul, South Korea, September 20, 2017
‘Interrupting Violence in Chicago: From Paternalism to Politics’
Kam Shapiro.
Invited presentation, Seoul, South Korea, September 18, 2017
Interrupting the Quest for Legitimacy: Nonviolent Means in Chicago
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), San Francisco, CA, September 1, 2017
‘CeaseFire: Techniques of Nonviolence in Chicago’
J. Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA), Vancouver, April 13, 2017
“The Impoliteness of Smart Power”
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), Philadelphia, PA, September 2, 2016
'Assembling Counter-Racism: Twain Contra Tocqueville'
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), San Francisco, September 3, 2015
“Words and Trees: Communication and Nature in Benjamin, Deleuze, and Whitehead”
Kam Shapiro.
Seizing an Alternative, Claremont, CA., June 7, 2015
Residues: Theories of Collective Affection in Vilfredo Pareto and Radical Democratic Theory.
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association (APSA), Washington, D.C., August 31, 2014
Between Governance and Anarchy: Walter Benjamin on Politeness and Diplomacy.
Kam Shapiro.
International Political Science Association (IPSA), Montreal, CA, July 4, 2014
Images that Inform: Mimesis and Allegory in Walter Benjamin’s Trauerspiel and The Manchurian Candidate
Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association (WPSA), Seattle, WA, April 17, 2014
‘Rights to Assemble? Reflections on the role of rights for a democratic politics of emergence.’
Kam Shapiro.
Philosophy Department Colloquium, ISU, Illinois State University, April, 2013
Assembling Unequals: Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze
Kam Shapiro.
Western Political Science Association, Los Angeles, March 30, 2013
Toward a Reflexive Biopolitics’
J. Kam Shapiro.
Transformations of the Public Sphere: International and Interdisciplinary conference, Online, April 13, 2012
Imagining Counter-Majorities
J. Kam Shapiro.
WPSA Annual Conference, Portland, OR, March 24, 2012
‘Rights to Assemble?’
Kam Shapiro.
American Political Science Association annual conference, Seattle, WA, September 2, 2011