Jakub Franek

Jakub Franěk is a Postdoctoral Scholar and a Visiting Instructor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. He joined the MSU Political Science Department in August 2008. Before coming to MSU, he taught at Western Connecticut State University. Franěk received a B.A. (1997) and an M.A. (1999) from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague and a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Boston College (2007).

Franěk’s research focuses on modern and contemporary political thought. His dissertation, Hannah Arendt on the Crisis of Modernity: Philosophy and Politics in the Post-Totalitarian World (2007), explores Arendt’s political theory with special emphasis on her critique of contemporary mass society. He has recently published an article on Michel Foucault’s late lectures on parrhesia in Continental Philosophy Review (June 2006) and wrote a chapter on Locke’s political philosophy for a multi-volume History of Political Thought (in Czech) currently being prepared for publication by Oikoymenh Press in Prague. He also publishes occasional opinion pieces and analytical articles on both Czech and US politics in Czech newspaper Právo