Matthew J. Smetona (Ph.D., Temple University, 2010) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science (NTT) in the Department of Political Science and Economics at Rowan University. His teaching includes courses in the history of political philosophy, a range of American politics courses including American political thought, a political science research methods course (including quantitative analysis from descriptive statistics to logistic regression), and a core curriculum interdisciplinary humanities course. He has taught in the Departments of Political Science at Temple and Rutgers Universities, as well as the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University. His research interests center on 19th century European political philosophy, especially Hegel, Marx, and their relation; and 20th century critical social theory, especially the Western Marxist tradition from Lukács and Gramsci to Habermas.

His first book, Hegel’s Logical Comprehension of the Modern State, was published by Lexington Books (a subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield) in March, 2013. The book attempts to articulate the conceptual framework Hegel employs when he asserts that the modern state as he conceptualizes it is rational. It argues that Hegel’s criterion of rationality is the holistic inferential system of concepts he refers to as the Concept and depicts in his Science of Logic. The book then seeks to explain Hegel’s political philosophy as it is articulated in the Philosophy of Right in terms of the logical and metaphysical requirements of the Science of Logic.

He has written a forthcoming article in Telos on how Hegel’s identification of civil society with his concept of a “spurious infinity” (schlechte Unendlichkeit) demonstrates an identity between the logic of his critique of that institution and the logic of Marx’s critique of the circulation process of capitalist society, as well as an article published in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy on Marx’s attempt in the Grundrisse to appropriate the logical form of Hegel’s dialectical conception of rational cognition while at the same time dispensing with the idealist metaphysics which form its conceptual content. His current research project investigates Marx’s explanation of material structures in terms of social norms which are dependent on recognition but which cannot be unrecognized without material transformation.

Courses Taught:

Rowan University: Survey of Western Political Theory; Methodology and Statistics in Political Science Research; American Political Thought; and American Government

Temple University: Introduction to Political Philosophy (writing-intensive); The American Political System; The Individual, Race, and American Political Life; American State and Local Politics; and Mosaic: Humanities Seminar II

Rutgers University (Camden): Ancient Political Theory (writing-intensive); Modern Political Theory (writing-intensive)

Publications:

“Hegel and Marx on the schlechte Unendlichkeit of Modern Civil Society.” Telos. Forthcoming (2013).

Hegel’s Logical Comprehension of the Modern State. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013.

“Marx’s Inferential Commitment to Hegel’s Idealism in the Grundrisse.” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy vol. 16, no. 2 (2012): 351-372.

Presentations:

“Recognition and Normativity in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy,” Philosophy Department Colloquium, Rowan University, April 18, 2013

“To Posit Oneself as Universal: Hegel and Marx on the Problem of Identity Formation,” Temple University Political Theory Workshop, November 14, 2012 in Philadelphia, PA

“The Normative Foundations of Marx’s Mature Critique of Political Economy,” American Political Science Association, August 31, 2012 in New Orleans, LA

“The Synthesis of Hegel and Marx in Marcuse’s Late Political Writings,” Northeastern Political Science Association, November 19, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA

“Hegel and Marx on the schlechte Unendlichkeit of Modern Civil Society,” Northeastern Political Science Association, November 11, 2010 in Boston, MA

“The Absolute Spontaneity of the Logical Concept: Rethinking Hegel’s Theory of Freedom,” American Political Science Association, September 3, 2010 in Washington, DC

“Thought is to Itself its own Object: Hegel’s Science of Logic and his Philosophy of Right,” Northeastern Political Science Association, November 21, 2009 in Philadelphia, PA

“Hegel’s Concept of the Political: Preliminaries,” Temple University Political Theory Workshop, March 25, 2009 in Philadelphia, PA

“Politics vs. Epistemology in Nietzsche,” Pennsylvania Political Science Association, March 31, 2006 in Harrisburg, PA

Professional Activities:

Manuscript Referee for Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, and Journal of Social Philosophy