Jack Turner III

Jack Turner III is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, affiliated with the Department of Political Science within the College of Arts & Sciences. His research focuses on U.S. political thought, critical race theory, democratic theory, and liberalism's critiques. He authored Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America and co-edited African American Political Thought: A Collected History. His work explores themes like racial justice, citizenship, and the intersections of literature and politics.

Recent publications include analyses of Walt Whitman’s democratic thought (Whitman’s Undemocratic Vistas, 2023) and Audre Lorde’s anti-imperial critiques (2021). He teaches courses on political theory, race, and American intellectual history. His current project is Die Your Own Death: Walt Whitman's Existential Democracy.

Turner’s scholarship bridges historical and contemporary debates, emphasizing marginalized voices in political philosophy. He has published widely in journals like American Political Science Review and Political Theory, addressing topics from John Locke’s colonialism to Frederick Douglass’s post-Reconstruction thought.