Rate My Professor Stuart Gray

Stuart Gray is an Associate Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University, where he has served since 2015, advancing from Assistant Professor in 2021. He previously held the position of Charles and Amy Scharf Post-Doctoral Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University from 2012 to 2015. Gray earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012, an M.A. in Political Science from the same institution in 2007, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Davis in 2002 with honors. His academic interests center on the history of political thought in both Western and non-Western traditions, global-comparative political theory, Greek political thought, South Asian political thought, and the intersection of politics and religion. He possesses reading knowledge of ancient Greek and Sanskrit, enabling his work on original texts. As affiliate faculty in the Middle East and South Asia Studies Program since 2017, he contributes to interdisciplinary efforts.

Gray's scholarly output includes two monographs: A Defense of Rule: Origins of Political Thought in Greece and India, published by Oxford University Press in 2017, and The Political Theory of the Bhagavad-Gītā: Deep Ideology, Nationalism, and Democratic Life on the Indian Subcontinent, forthcoming from De Gruyter in 2025. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in prestigious journals such as Political Theory, History of Political Thought, The Review of Politics, Philosophy East and West, and Journal of World Philosophies. Notable contributions include chapters in The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2020), and Political Theory on Death and Dying (Routledge, 2021). He has authored book reviews for Political Theory, Perspectives on Politics, and Law, Culture and the Humanities. Gray has received significant recognition, including the 2022–23 Lenfest Sabbatical Fellowship, multiple Lenfest Summer Research Grants from Washington and Lee University, the 2012 Outstanding Teaching Award from the UCSB Academic Senate, and the 2008 Manzer-Wesson Award for Best Dissertation Prospectus. His service includes chairing the Glynn Family Scholarship Committee in 2021, serving on the Public Functions Committee from 2024–29, and acting as Faculty Athletic Mentor for Volleyball in 2025. He teaches courses such as Introduction to Political Philosophy, Gandhi and His Critics, and Indian Epic and Political Philosophy.