Dianne Rothleder
Teaching Professor
Dr. Dianne Rothleder’s current research interest is the intersection between Plato’s philosophical work and Shakespeare’s philosophically aware plays. Plato’s work is concerned with the differences between what we can know, what we do know, and what we think we know. His work uses concerns about knowledge to help us understand what the nature of social justice might be. Shakespeare’s plays are peopled with characters whose concerns about justice, knowledge, truth, and the shared world mirror the concerns in Plato’s works.
Dr. Rothleder has been awarded the Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award at Northwestern University’s School for Professional Studies (2011). She has been a “top finisher” twice for 草莓社区’s Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022 and 2023). She has received a Gratias Award from the Student Accessibility Center (2024) for work with a student who then nominated her.
Education
- Ph.D. University of Chicago, Political Science, 1994.
- M.A. University of Chicago, Political Science, 1988.
- B.A. Northwestern University, Political Philosophy, 1986.
Research Interests
Dr. Rothleder’s major research interests include political philosophy, ancient philosophy, Plato and Shakespeare, the work of Walter Benjamin, intersections between philosophy and literature.
Dr. Rothleder is starting on a new book project on political fantasy in Plato and Shakespeare.
She is working on a paper on Plato’s Protagoras and Theaetetus, and a paper on connections between the works of the painters Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Cy Twombly, and Mark Rothko.
Courses Taught
草莓社区
Honors 101: Western Traditions: Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Honors 102: Western Traditions: Renaissance to Modernity
Honors D101: Developments Western Thought I - Discussion
Honors D102: Developments Western Thought II - Discussion
Honors 203B: U. S. Experience
Philosophy 181: Ethics
Philosophy 182: Social and Political Philosophy
Philosophy 120: Philosophy of Human Nature
Philosophy 130: Philosophy and Persons
Northwestern University - Master’s in Public Policy and Administration Program, School of Continuing/Professional Studies
American Political Institutions and Behavior
Political Theory and Public Policy
The Legislative Process
Scope and Dynamics of the Policy Process
Writing and Communication
Publications/Research Listings
Books Published:
Fraught Decisions in Plato and Shakespeare, Rowman and Littlefield/Bloomsbury. 2020.
The Work of Friendship: Rorty, His Critics, and the Project of Solidarity, SUNY Press. 1999.
Book Manuscript under Review:
Philosophical Synesthesia: Socrates, Hamlet, and Life Death (under editorial review)
Recent Articles Published:
“Scenes of Walking: Toward a Right of Absorptive Theatricality and Theatrical Absorption,” in Journal of Speculative Philosophy, pp. 361-377. Vol. 36, No. 3, 2022.
“The Evil Deceiver and the Evil Truth Teller: Descartes, Iago, and Scepticism,” in Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy, edited by Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick-Bourne, November 2018.
Recent Conference Papers:
“Passing Names: Creolization in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Plato’s Cratylus,” accepted for presentation at the November 2026 Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy annual meeting in Chicago.
“Hospitality on Trial,” Ancient Philosophy Society Meeting, New York City, April 2026.
“How to Do Things with Not: Agamben, Bartleby, and Refusal as an Act of Creation,” North Texas Philosophical Association Meeting, Dallas, Texas, March 2026.
“Played Out: Tragic, Comic, and Conceptual Exhaustion in Hamlet and Benjamin,” presented at the Critical Theory Conference in Rome, St. John’s University, May 2025.
“August Wilson’s Fences and the Pedagogy of Re-Writing the Cannon for Inclusion,” presented on a panel on re-writing the cannon at the Focus on Teaching and Learning Conference, 草莓社区, January 10, 2024.
“Strategic Dis-Understanding as a Way of Encountering Texts,” presented at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, October 2023 in Toronto.
“Throw Everything at the Wall and See What Sticks, or, Stochastic Violence and Benjamin’” The International Critical Theory Conference in Rome, May 2022.