Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Faculty, Department of Political Science, UH Mānoa

Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller

Professor
Office: Saunders 632B
Telephone: 1 (808) 956-8563
Email: hiller@hawaii.edu

UH Award Winner

Regents' Medal for Excellence in Teaching (2003)
Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching (1997)

Background

I completed my BA in political science at Reed College (1979) and my MA and PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1991), with emphasis in public law, comparative politics, and Marxist theory. Prior to graduate school, I had the opportunity to live and teach in West Africa, and subsequently I taught at Reed College prior to joining the faculty at UH.

Education

  • PhD, Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991
  • MA, Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983
  • BA, Political Science, Reed College, 1979

Courses

  • POLS 110: Introduction to Political Science
  • POLS 374: Law, Politics and Society
  • POLS 375: Constitutional Law I: Institutional Power
  • POLS 376: Constitutional Law II: Rights and Liberties
  • POLS 377: Topics in Law and Politics
  • POLS 385: American Politics
  • POLS 406: Senior Seminar in Political Science
  • POLS 600: Scope and Methods of Political Science
  • POLS 610: Political Theory and Analysis
  • POLS 660: Public Law and Judicial Systems
  • POLS 670: Introduction to Public Policy
  • POLS 710: Seminar: Political Thought
  • POLS 770: Seminar: Public Policy

Research

I have recently been studying the ways changing forms of identity, nationalism, political authority and political economy have modulated the mobilization of rights in various contexts. By starting with these dimensions of social life rather than with rights discourses themselves, I have tried to understand how rights are resisted and how they retain relevancy; in this vein, I have researched such contemporary phenomena as the conservative reaction against same-sex marriage, opposition to the political recognition of indigenous peoples, and efforts by labor unions to boycott legal regulatory machinery. I am presently embarking on a study of the means by which Indigenous peoples in the Pacific have mobilized rights that lack constitutional or jurisdictional authority and how these ideas about rights have traveled across space and time, altering Indigenous identities and redirecting political demands.