Rate My Professor James Old

James Paul Old serves as Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations in the College of Arts and Sciences at Valparaiso University. His office is located in Arts and Sciences Building Room 352. Old earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in American politics and political theory from the University of Notre Dame. His 1999 doctoral dissertation is titled "Many members of one body: a study of political attitudes, political theologies and tensions in the Christian right." His research interests include literature and politics and religion.

Old has published articles such as "Making Good Americans: The Politics of Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop" in Perspectives on Political Science (2021), "Wandering over Boundless Fields: The Fiction of Willa Cather and the Reformation of Communal Memory" in American Political Thought (2018), "Religion, Race, and Immigration Attitudes in the 2020 US Elections" with Gregg G. Johnson in Journal of Religion and Society (2023), "The Constitution in the Public Mind: Stability and Change" with Larry Baas and J.C. Rhoads in Cultivating Q Methodology: Essays Honoring Steven R. Brown (2022), "The Constitution in the Public Mind: New Perspectives" with Larry R. Baas and J.C. Rhoads in Operant Subjectivity (2023), "Antidiscrimination Ordinances in Northwest Indiana: An Event-History Analysis of Municipal Policies Since 1992" with K.P. Fields in Midwest Social Sciences Journal (2019), and "Reconstructing the Vale of Paradise: A Return to the City Beautiful Movement" with Alan Bloom in South Shore Journal (2007). He has written book reviews including "MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY" in The Review of Politics (2008), "Dissident among Dissidents" in The Review of Politics (2003), and "Artificial Life after Frankenstein" by Eileen Hunt Botting in Politics & Gender (2021). Old served as editor of The Cresset, Valparaiso University’s literary journal, since 2005. He has been associate director of the Community Research and Service Center. Old regularly sponsors undergraduate student research projects presented at conferences, covering topics such as reported bias incidents in Northwest Indiana, corruption in Latin American states and its effect on citizen trust, the influence of government assistance on homelessness, black maternal mortality rates, and increased polarization and political ideology among U.S. senators. He has appeared as a guest speaker on topics including the Electoral College and the transition of power, and the Lutheran Center for Christian Study Washington Semester program.