Kimberly Smith

Associate Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies
Carleton College

I teach courses in political theory, constitutional law, environmental ethics and environmental politics. I earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1997, and a law degree from the Boalt School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley (1991). In 2009, I was appointed to the editorial board of Environmental Ethics and served as the first elected President of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences.

My research centers on intellectual history and philosophy, particularly the history of American environmental thought, environmental political theory and environmental ethics. My first book, The Dominion of Voice: Riot, Reason and Romance in Antebellum Politics (University Press of Kansas, 1999) was awarded the 2001 Merle Curti Intellectual History Award by the Organization of American Historians. My second book, Wendell Berry and the Agrarian Tradition: A Common Grace, was published in 2003. My third book, African American Environmental Thought: Foundations was published by University Press of Kansas in Spring 2007, and named "Outstanding Academic Title" by Choice Magazine in 2008. Other publications include articles in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Women's Studies, Environmental Values, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics and Environmental Ethics, and several entries in the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and the forthcoming Encyclopedia of American Environmental History. My most recent book in entitled Governing Animals: Animal Welfare and the Liberal State. It will be published by Oxford University Press this summer.

My area of expertise is ethics, political theory, and public policy. My book explores the status of animals in liberal political theory, and investigates animal law and policy along the way. I hope to contribute to conversations about our ethical and political duties to animals and to learn how the perspectives of other disciplines can influence my own understandings about the place of animals in our political community.