Storytelling, Perspective, and the Politics of Fiction

Dr. Jack Miller of the PSU Hatfield School of Government will deliver a talk on the ways that storytelling shapes our ideas about the world, with particular emphasis on how fictional representations of politics impact our views about politics and our place within the competitive landscape of political action. The talk will conclude with a reading from Dr. Miller's forthcoming novel, The Myth of America, an alternative history where the United States loses the American Revolution and must struggle an additional half-century for independence.

Dr. Jack Miller has been teaching political philosophy and American politics for over 30 years. He has held positions in such far-flung places as Romania, Azerbaijan, Mississippi, and Seattle. He is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in Politics and Global Affairs at Portland State University. He is also the host and producer of The Pothole Problem Podcast and Two Ring Circus, a podcast about Congress, and the author of two novels: 1994, a novel of politics (2019), which centers around an Ohio Senate campaign during the Red Wave election of 1994, and Invisible Empire (2020), set amid the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Astoria, Oregon in the early-1920s. He is currently completing his third novel, The Myth of America, planned for a late-2025 release. Video lectures and other performances are available on his YouTube channel.