Rebeca Leffler

Rebeca C. Leffler is an America in the World Consortium (AWC) Postdoctoral Associate at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Her research engages with American political thought, the history of political thought, and rhetoric and statesmanship. Prior to joining AWC, Leffler taught political philosophy and government at Claremont McKenna College and Hamilton College. Leffler’s peer-reviewed research has been published or is forthcoming in American Political Thought, SAGE Encyclopedia of Crime and Gender, and the edited volume, Movements and American Political Thought. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities at LancasterHistory, the Western Political Science Association, the Jack Miller Center, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Current Project

Leffler’s first book, provisionally titled Rhetoric and Rebellion: Constitutional Limits in the Speeches of James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, recovers a classical understanding of rhetoric to investigate its use within the American political tradition. Her monograph is divided into two major parts. Part One provides a philosophical approach to the phenomenon of rhetoric through a close reading of Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus and Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric. Part Two examines how two executives in the American political tradition used the art of rhetoric to address the major threats of their presidencies. Her methodological approach blends political philosophy, constitutional theory, and applied history. To support her research developing the political thought of James Buchanan, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) postdoctoral research fellowship at LancasterHistory.

Education

• Ph.D. in Political Science, Claremont Graduate University, 2023
• M.A. in Politics, Claremont Graduate University, 2018
• B.A. in English, California State University, Los Angeles, 2016

Publications - Books