Engaging Democracy

JoAnne Myers, Ph.D. (Skidmore College, RPI)  believes in active citizenship and walks the talk.  Dr. JAM, as she is known to her students, labels herself an applied political theorist.  After spending a considerable time in New York City and State government implementing various projects from methane gas recovery to the transition of rent administration from local to state oversight and the expansions of Fort Drum to house the 10th Light Mountain Division.  She also worked with various not for profits from domestic violence, to environmental organizations  to human rights commissions as she practices applying liberal democracy theory. 

The courses she teaches at Marist University reflect her breadth of practice including:  various Political Theory courses; Applied Public Administration; American National Government; Human Rights, Socio-Political Movements, and Politics of Prejudice.  She founded  the Women’s Studies Program ( now the Women, Gender and Sexualities Studies)  and co-coordinator of the annual Women & Society Conference, an interdisciplinary, and international feminist conference.

Dr. JAM wrote The Good Citizen: The Markers of Privilege in America ( Routledge, 2020); The Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian and Gay  Liberation Movements  (Scarecrow Press, 2013) and The Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage (Scarecrow Press, 2003).  She contributed among other articles and chapters “Public Discourse: Property Rights, Public Good and NIMBY” written with Suzanne Bridges in Contested Terrain: Power, Politics, and Participation in Suburbia, Marc L. Silver and Martin Melkonian, editors  (Greenwood Press, 1995); “Feminism, History of”  in Alan Soble, ed. Sex from Plato to Paglia, a philosophic encyclopedia. (Greenwood Press, 2006), “Justice”  in Letizia Guglielmo, ed.  Misogyny in American Culture, (ABC-CLIO Oct 2018) and with Lynn Eckert “Dog-Whistles, Coded Language and the Gun Range Debate” in Gun Violence and Gun Control: Critical Engagements, editors Annette Bailey, Thomas S. Harrison, and Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich (Demeter Press, 2022.).  She is currently working on a local government  case book with Dr. Eckert.   She was a regular columnist and reviewer for InsideOUT Magazine, a bimonthly publication with a 35,000 readership.  With Joan Tronto she authored “Truth and Advocacy: a Feminist Perspective” PS: Political Science and Politics, December, 1998.  She edited Eleanor Roosevelt and her Legacy  volume of The Hudson River Valley Review, Autumn 2009.