Faculty Profile

Kathryn Heard

(she/her/hers)Assistant Professor of Political Science (2018)

Contact Information

heardk@dickinson.edu

Denny Hall Room 210
717-254-8051

Bio

Professor Heard's research and teaching interests are in political theory and American constitutional jurisprudence, with specialized interests in secularism and religious pluralism; theories of democracy, justice, and affect; feminist thought; critical race theory; capital punishment; and equal protection law. Her work crosses disciplinary boundaries in order to illuminate: how the study of political theory can be generative of tangible law and policy recommendations, how bringing an historical eye to contemporary issues can illuminate latent political injuries or social inequalities, and how promoting pedagogical diversity can foster an inclusive and dynamic classroom. Professor Heard's work has been published in the Journal of Law, Culture, and the Humanities as well as an edited volume on transatlantic approaches to the abolition of capital punishment. Her research has been supported by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies Fellowship, the Mellon Discovery Fellowship at the Townsend Center for the Humanities, and the William K. Coblentz Center for Civil Rights. Prior to her arrival at Dickinson, she was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society.

Education

  • B.A., Whitman College, 2006
  • M.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science 2007
  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2020

2023-2024 Academic Year

Fall 2023

LAWP 234 Gender and Justice
Cross-listed with PHIL 261-01, POSC 234-01 and WGSS 302-02. Permission of Instructor Required.

POSC 234 Gender and Justice
Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01, PHIL 261-01 and WGSS 302-02. Permission of Instructor Required.

LAWP 248 The Judiciary
Cross-listed with POSC 248-01. Permission of Instructor Required.

POSC 248 The Judiciary
Cross-listed with LAWP 248-01. Permission of Instructor Required.

PHIL 261 Gender and Justice
Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01, POSC 234-01 and WGSS 302-02. Permission of Instructor Required.This course analyzes how legal theorists have drawn upon notions of gender, sex, and sexuality in order to understand and critique the American legal system and its norms. It considers questions like: How might a feminist perspective on the law illuminate instances of systematized inequality or legalized discrimination? Can queer theorists engage with the law in order to alter it, or does the very act of engagement hinder the possibility of future socio-legal change? How can the law better represent women of color, working women, queer women, stay-at-home mothers, transgender or non-binary individuals, women seeking surrogate or abortion services, and more, without reinforcing traditional understandings of what it means to be a "woman"? These questions - and more - will be taken up as we move through a rich combination of political philosophy, legal cases, and works of socio-legal analysis.

WGSS 302 Gender and Justice
Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01, PHIL 261-01 and POSC 234-01. Permission of Instructor Required.This course analyzes how legal theorists have drawn upon notions of gender, sex, and sexuality in order to understand and critique the American legal system and its norms. It considers questions like: How might a feminist perspective on the law illuminate instances of systematized inequality or legalized discrimination? Can queer theorists engage with the law in order to alter it, or does the very act of engagement hinder the possibility of future socio-legal change? How can the law better represent women of color, working women, queer women, stay-at-home mothers, transgender or non-binary individuals, women seeking surrogate or abortion services, and more, without reinforcing traditional understandings of what it means to be a "woman"? These questions - and more - will be taken up as we move through a rich combination of political philosophy, legal cases, and works of socio-legal analysis.

LAWP 400 Religious Freedom
Permission of Instructor Required. In this senior seminar, we examine historical and contemporary examples of the law's regulation of religion in order to think critically about the values of freedom, liberty, and equality in democratic societies. We will bring a range of classic texts on religion (such as John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and Karl Marx's "On the Jewish Question") to bear on watershed legal cases (on such issues as polygamy, religious dress in the workplace, the consumption of spiritual hallucinogens, and faith-based objections to healthcare). In doing so, we will also examine how the democratic tensions illuminated by the aforementioned texts are made manifest in modern culture by interpreting street art, ethnographic accounts of spiritually-driven lives, and popular media. Some of the questions we will explore include: What "counts" as religion in the eyes of the law? How has the relationship between religion and the law been historically understood in the liberal democratic state, and how do these historical understandings account for (or refute the possibility of) religious difference? How might contemporary socio-cultural developments - like the recent refusal of some religious individuals to serve same-sex couples - help us to uncover what assumptions the law makes about the "proper" practice of religion? Can religious freedom and individual liberty truly coexist within a democratic state? Fundamentally, this course critically attends to how the law has served to shape both religious practices and cultural values. As a result, students will emerge from this course with a nuanced understanding of how law and religion are not separate entities, but rather generative of one another.

LAWP 500 Capital Punishment & Sup Court

Spring 2024

SOCI 230 Gender and Justice
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with POSC 243-01, WGSS 302-02, PHIL 261-04 and LAWP 234-04.

SOCI 230 Race & Rights of Citizenship
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with LAWP 290-01 and POSC 290-04.

LAWP 234 Gender and Justice
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with PHIL 261-04 and POSC 234-01, SOCI 230-04 and WGSS 302-02.

POSC 234 Gender and Justice
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01, PHIL 261-04, SOCI 230-04 and WGSS 302-02.

PHIL 261 Gender and Justice
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01, POSC 234-01, SOCI 230-04 and WGSS 302-02. This course analyzes how legal theorists have drawn upon notions of gender, sex, and sexuality in order to understand and critique the American legal system and its norms. It considers questions like: How might a feminist perspective on the law illuminate instances of systematized inequality or legalized discrimination? Can queer theorists engage with the law in order to alter it, or does the very act of engagement hinder the possibility of future socio-legal change? How can the law better represent women of color, working women, queer women, stay-at-home mothers, transgender or non-binary individuals, women seeking surrogate or abortion services, and more, without reinforcing traditional understandings of what it means to be a "woman"? These questions - and more - will be taken up as we move through a rich combination of political philosophy, legal cases, and works of socio-legal analysis. Prerequisites: One POSC, LAWP or WGSS course or permission of instructor.

LAWP 290 Race & Rights of Citizenship
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with POSC 290-04 and SOCI 230-05. In the United States, citizenship is often described in idealistic terms. Not only are all American citizens meant to have equal standing before the law, but so too should those who desire to become American citizens have equal access to the procedures, protections, and promises of citizenship. Cast in this light, citizenship is meant to signal a sense of recognition and belonging free from differential treatment on the basis of one's identity or status. Yet despite these narratives, the history of American citizenship is one that is marked by the colonization, domination, and disenfranchisement of groups defined as racially "other" - and therefore outside the bounds of citizenship. In this course, we will ask: How do we understand the coexistence of claims to equal citizenship in the United States given the historical realities of enslavement and race-based exclusion? What does it mean to be an American citizen and how has that meaning been shaped by the construction of racial identities across space and time? How might considerations of race in matters of citizenship also be shaped by other factors like sex, gender, national origin, religion, and class? Is citizenship actually a universal concept - that is, a concept that is open, in principle, to anyone at any time? Or is it an exclusive concept - reserved for a select few? And if racial injustice is not separable from citizenship, then is it possible to remake American citizenship along more egalitarian lines? To answer these questions, we will draw from a rich array of legal texts, political philosophy, history, sociology, first-person narratives, and Black, Asian, and Indigenous literature.

POSC 290 Race & Rights of Citizenship
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with LAWP 290-01 and SOCI 230-05. In the United States, citizenship is often described in idealistic terms. Not only are all American citizens meant to have equal standing before the law, but so too should those who desire to become American citizens have equal access to the procedures, protections, and promises of citizenship. Cast in this light, citizenship is meant to signal a sense of recognition and belonging free from differential treatment on the basis of one's identity or status. Yet despite these narratives, the history of American citizenship is one that is marked by the colonization, domination, and disenfranchisement of groups defined as racially "other" - and therefore outside the bounds of citizenship. In this course, we will ask: How do we understand the coexistence of claims to equal citizenship in the United States given the historical realities of enslavement and race-based exclusion? What does it mean to be an American citizen and how has that meaning been shaped by the construction of racial identities across space and time? How might considerations of race in matters of citizenship also be shaped by other factors like sex, gender, national origin, religion, and class? Is citizenship actually a universal concept - that is, a concept that is open, in principle, to anyone at any time? Or is it an exclusive concept - reserved for a select few? And if racial injustice is not separable from citizenship, then is it possible to remake American citizenship along more egalitarian lines? To answer these questions, we will draw from a rich array of legal texts, political philosophy, history, sociology, first-person narratives, and Black, Asian, and Indigenous literature.

WGSS 302 Gender and Justice
Permission of instructor required. Cross-listed with LAWP 234-01 and PHIL 261-04, SOCI 230-04 and POSC 234-01. This course analyzes how legal theorists have drawn upon notions of gender, sex, and sexuality in order to understand and critique the American legal system and its norms. It considers questions like: How might a feminist perspective on the law illuminate instances of systematized inequality or legalized discrimination? Can queer theorists engage with the law in order to alter it, or does the very act of engagement hinder the possibility of future socio-legal change? How can the law better represent women of color, working women, queer women, stay-at-home mothers, transgender or non-binary individuals, women seeking surrogate or abortion services, and more, without reinforcing traditional understandings of what it means to be a "woman"? These questions - and more - will be taken up as we move through a rich combination of political philosophy, legal cases, and works of socio-legal analysis. Prerequisites: One POSC, LAWP or WGSS course or permission of instructor.

POSC 500 Independent Study

LAWP 560 Stu/Faculty Collaborative Rsch