Kathy Ferguson

Background

I grew up and went to school in what novelist William Gass calls "the heart of the heart of the country". My family lived on a farm in central Indiana. At Purdue University I stepped into a political theory class taught by Michael Weinstein and I knew that I had found my calling. It was all terribly confusing, but so exciting, to learn to think as he did. In the PhD program at the University of Minnesota, I found another splendid teacher, Mulford Sibley, whose support enabled me to write the first dissertation on women or feminism in that department. Becoming a teacher who could live up to the examples set by my own beloved teachers became my goal.

Education

• PhD, Political Science, University of Minnesota, 1976
• BA, Political Science, Purdue University, 1972

Courses

• POLS 200: Reading and Writing Politics
• POLS 335: History of Political Thought
• POLS 384: Women and Politics
• POLS 610: Political Theory and Analysis
• POLS 615 (Alpha): Topics in Political Thought
• POLS 710: Seminar: Political Thought

Research

My central research interest is political theory, including feminist theory and anarchism. I recently completed a book on Emma Goldman as a political thinker, and in the process found many hundreds of other interesting anarchist women. Accordingly, I'm currently writing a book on anarchist women, primarily in the U.S. and Britain, from 1870-1940. My goal is to bring women more fully into anarchism, and at the same time to bring anarchism more fully into feminism. A second book on the constitutive role of letterpress printers in the anarchist movement, also an outcome of my Goldman research, is also underway. I turn back to these radical histories to make our understandings of them more robust so that we can use them better today. When these books are done, a book on horses beckons.

Community Engagement

As an educator and a parent, I became aware that our school system fails dyslexic students. Since the mid-1990s, I've been trying to change that. I've been involved with the Hawaiʻi branch of the International Dyslexia Association (HIDA) for over 25 years. I became a Certified Tutor in the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching literacy, and have tutored about 50 adults and children. I recently wrote a book called A Resource Guide on Dyslexia for People in Hawai'i that was published by HIDA in 2018 and is distributed free upon request.