Mary P. Nichols
Retired Professor of Political Science
Education:
Ph.D., University of Chicago
Thesis: A Commentary on Plato's Phaedrus
Committee Chair: Joseph Cropsey
M.A., University of Kansas
B.A., Newcomb College of Tulane University, magna cum laude, with honors in political science
Books
Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015)
Plato’s Euthydemus (with Gregory McBrayer and Denise Schaeffer), trans. and commentary (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2010)
Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus, and Lysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009
Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films of Woody Allen,. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998
Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle's Politics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992
Socrates and the Political Community: An Ancient Debate. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987
Readings in American Government (with David K. Nichols). Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1976-present
Selected Articles
“World Enough and Time: Immortal Longings, Tragedy, and Comedy in Antony and Cleopatra” (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2018.“Philosophic Care in the Life of Plato’s Socrates,” in Socrates in the Cave: Essays on the Philosopher's Motive in Plato, ed.by Paul J. Diduch and Michael P. Harding (Palgrave MacMillan 2018.
“Leaders and Leadership in Thucydides’ History,” Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, eds. Sara Forsdyke, Edith Foster, and Ryan Balot (Oxford University Press, 2017).
“Shakespeare’s Christian Vision in Henry VIII,” Review of Politics, 76 (Fall 2014): 537-57.
“Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Men and 3:10 to Yuma,” in Perspectives on Political Science (Fall, 2008): 207-215.
“Philosophy and Empire: On Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium,” Polity, Vol. 39, No. 4 (October 2007): 502-21.
“Friendship and Community in Plato’s Lysis,” Review of Politics, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Winter, 2006): 1-19.
“Seductive Beauty and Noble Deeds: Politics in The English Patient and Casablanca,” in Political Philosophy Comes to Rick’s, ed. James F. Pontuso (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
“Socrates’ Contest with the Poets in Plato’s Symposium,” Political Theory Vol. 32, No. 2 (April, 2004): 186-206.
“Huckleberry Finn and Twain’s Democratic Art of Writing,” in Seers and Judges: American Literature as Political Philosophy, ed. by Christine Henderson (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Press, 2002); reprinted in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ed. Harold Bloom (Chelsea House Publications, 2005).
"Whit Stillman's Comic Art," Intercollegiate Review (Spring, 2000); reprinted in Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman, edited by Mark Henrie (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2001).
“Woody Allen’s Search for Virtue for a Liberal Society,” Film and Philosophy, 2000.