Lyle Jeremy Rubin
PhD, 2020
Advisor: Daniel Borus
Major Fields: American History
Minor Fields: US Intellectual History, Modernity and Modernism (Transnational)
- ljrubin@gmail.com
Research Interests
My dissertation recovers a market socialist tendency in the United States, one that has embedded itself within a predominantly liberal discourse. It engages with an array of thinkers, some well-known (like Thomas Paine and Henry George) and others unjustifiably neglected (like the economists Esther Lowenthal and Abram Lincoln Harris).
Dissertation
"The Invisible Left Hand: Adam Smith and the Liberal Socialist Tradition in America, 1776-1926"
Education
MA, University of Rochester, 2013
BA, Emory University, 2005
Selected Publications
- “Yoram Hazony and the Hysterics of Reaction,” The Bias Magazine (online), September 30, 2020, https://christiansocialism.com/yoram-hazony-nationalism-conservatism/.
- “Daniel Ellsberg: The nuclear war planner who knew too much,” review of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg, The Independent (online), September 23, 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/nuclear-war-planner-daniel-ellsberg-whistleblower-doomsday-book-b421899.html.
- “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” review of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg, Raritan: A Quarterly Review, Summer 2020, 27-33.
- "How Stacey Abrams inadvertently started a conversation about American militarism," Responsible Statecraft (online), June 1, 2020, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/06/01/how-stacey-abrams-inadvertently-started-a-conversation-about-american-militarism/.
- "The Long Arm of the Law," review of Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing, by Stuart Schrader, The Baffler (online), January 27, 2020, https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-long-arm-of-the-law-rubin.
- "Veterans: Pull the Troops Out of Afghanistan Now," The New York Times (online), November 11, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/opinion/veterans-afghanistan-war.html.
- “Beyond Bowe Bergdahl,” review of American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan, by Matt Farwell and Michael Ames, The Nation (online), October 23, 2019, https://www.thenation.com/article/bowe-bergdahl-american-cipher-review/.
- “Modern Warfare’s Secrets: An Interview with Lyle Rubin,” interviewed by Slawek Blich in Dissent (online), June 6, 2019, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/modern-warfares-secrets-an-interview-with-lyle-rubin-edward-gallagher.
- "The Paranoid, Reactionary Dreams of Ronald Reagan,” review of Reagan: An American Journey, by Bob Spitz,Jacobin (online), March 16, 2019, https://jacobinmag.com/2019/03/reagan-american-journey-review-spitz-biography.
- "Ilhan Omar is a Threat to US Empire," Jacobin (online), February 23, 2019, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/ilhan-omar-aipac-israel-us-empire.
- "Under the Boot," review of The Corrosion of Conservatism, by Max Boot,The Baffler (online), February 12, 2019, https://thebaffler.com/latest/under-the-boot-rubin.
- "Trump is losing military voters. Here's how Democrats can win them over," Washington Post (online), December 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/31/trump-is-losing-military-voters-heres-how-democrats-can-win-them-over/.
- "Base Culture," n+1, 33 (Winter), 85-95.
- “‘A torrent of ghastly revelations’: what military service taught me about America,” The Guardian (online), December 18, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/18/torrent-of-ghastly-revelations-what-military-service-taught-me-about-america-us-marine-corps-afghanistan.
- “The Forever War's Cheerleaders,” The Nation (online), September 20, 2018, https://www.thenation.com/article/the-forever-wars-cheerleaders/.
- "It's Time for a Little Perspective on Russia," Current Affairs (online), July 20, 2018, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/its-time-for-a-little-perspective-on-russia.
- "Why Anticapitalist Conservatism Fails," review of Why Liberalism Failed, by Patrick Deneen, Jacobin (online), July 2, 2018, https://jacobinmag.com/2018/ 07/why-liberalism-failed- review-patrick-deneen.
- “The Left's Embrace of Empire,” The Nation (online), March 28, 2018, https://www.thenation.com/article/the-lefts-embrace-of-empire/.
- "Vietnam Reckoning," review of The Vietnam War, by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Christian Century, January 17, 2018, 22-26.
- "Capitalism and Freedom," review of Conservatives Against Capitalism: From the Industrial Revolution to Globalization, by Peter Kolozi, Jacobin (online), December 13, 2017, https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/conservatives-against-capitalism-review-kolozi.
- "A Veterans Day Plea from a Marine: Please, stop revering us," New York Daily News (online), November 11, 2017, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/veterans-day-plea-marine-stop-revering-article-1.3623746.
- From Our Foreign Wars to Our Domestic Massacres, Violence Begets Violence,” The Daily Beast, October 10, 2017, https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-our-foreign-wars-to-our-domestic-massacres-violence-begets-violence.
- “Appeal for a Reinvigorated Veterans Movement,” New Labor Forum (online), April 13, 2017, http://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2017/04/13/appeal-for-a-reinvigorated-veterans-movement/.
- “As a Former Marine, America’s War-Making Haunts Me—It Should Haunt Our Politicians Too,” The Nation (online), April 12, 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/my-experience-of-americas-war-making-haunts-me-it-should-haunt-our-politicians-too/.
- “Who Wants to Save Capitalism?,” Jacobin (online), October 26, 2015, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/bleeding-heart-libertarians-reason-zwolinski-capitalism-occupy-market-socialism-fox/.
- Review of The New Prophets of Capital, by Nicole Aschoff, InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture (IVC), August 25, 2015, https://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/the-new-prophets-of-capital/.
- Interview of Jacob Bridge, “A conscientious objector,” Aeon, April 10, 2015, http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-a-top-us-marine-became-a-conscientious-objector/.
- Review of Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis, by Benjamin Kunkel, InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture (IVC), September 12, 2014, http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/portfolio/utopia-or-bust/.
- “A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson,” The Nation (online), August 20, 2014, http://www.thenation.com/article/181315/catalog-ferguson-police-weaponry.
- “Por una radicalidad realista,” translated by Mariano Grynszpan in Nueva Sociedad, September-October 2013, 96-106.
- “A Realistic Radicalism,” Dissent (online), May 28, 2013, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-realistic-radicalism.
- “Warrior Critics,” review of A People’s History of the U.S. Military: Ordinary Soldiers Reflect on Their Experience of War, from the American Revolution to Afghanistan, by Michael Bellesiles, Dissent (online), September 17, 2012, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/warrior-critics.
- “A return to seriousness,” Aeon, September 13, 2012, http://aeon.co/magazine/society/lyle-rubin-afghanistan-war-veterans-injustice/.
- “On James Livingston and the New Intellectuals,” Dissent (online), July 11, 2012, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/on-james-livingston-and-the-new-intellectuals.
- “Afghanistan Diary,” CONSEQUENCE magazine, Spring 2012, 71-86.
- “How the Left can Win the Military, and Save America’s Soul,” Dissent (online), April 9, 2012, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/how-the-left-can-win-the-military-and-save-americas-soul.
Selected Publications
Presentations
- “A Not-So-Strange Case of Liberal Socialism: Adam Smith and Abolitionist Thought in the United States,” presented at the 2019 RadicalxChange Conference, The College for Creative Studies, Taubman Center, Detroit, MI: March 22-24, 2019.
- “The Economist’s Second Smith: Between Market Liberalism and Market Socialism, 1843 to the Present,” presented at the 2016 Histories of Capitalism, 2.0 Conference, Cornell University: September 29-October 1, 2016.
- “Adam Smith and the Neoliberal Presidency,” presented at the 2015 Iowa Conference on Presidential Politics (ICPP), Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA: October 29-31, 2015.
- “Toward an Ecological Public: Mining a Third Way American Politics in the Work of Aaron Sachs,” presented at the 2015 Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH) Conference, Washington, D.C.: October 15-18, 2015.
- “Undemocratic Education: An Arendtian Analysis of the No Excuses Charter School Movement,” presented at the 8th Annual Conference on Equity and Social Justice, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo, NY: March 7, 2015.
Teaching
- History 191: Vietnam: The American War, Co-Instructor, University of Rochester, Spring 2016
- History 202: Health, Medicine, and Social Reform, Teaching Assistant for Dr. Theodore Brown, University of Rochester, Spring 2015
- History 225: The First World War: A Centennial History, Teaching Assistant/ Section Leader for Dr. Stewart Weaver, University of Rochester, Fall 2014
Honors
- 2016 Meyers Graduate Teaching Award, which is given to “the graduate who has demonstrated excellence in teaching”
- 2015 Donald Marks “Dexter Perkins” Prize, which is given “to perpetuate the name of Dexter Perkins and is to encourage and assist a worthy student who is majoring in history in his/her cultural and intellectual development”
- Folger Shakespeare Library, Grant-in-Aid for “Debating Capitalism: Early Modern Political Economies” seminar, 2015