Chase Mendoza

Biography

Chase Mendoza is a third-year Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is primarily interested in Spanish scholasticism, especially the work of Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco Vitoria, and their conceptualization of liberty and property which emerged from encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He is also interested in the emergence of Utopian political thought during the Renaissance and its use in the colonial context. He has presented his work at conferences including the American Political Science Association and the Midwest Political Science Association. Currently, Mr. Mendoza serves as the Political Theory Field Representative for the Notre Dame Political Science Graduate Organization and as the Political Theory Colloquium Coordinator for the academic year.

Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Mr. Mendoza taught honors classes in English, Philosophy, and Politics at a college preparatory school in Chandler, Arizona. In one of the three classes he taught, he surveyed the works of early modern political theorists (e.g., Locke, Hobbes, and
Rousseau). Mr. Mendoza also surveyed the literature, philosophy, and history of ancient Greece from the Trojan War to the Persian Wars through the works of Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. Additionally, he mentored students in their senior year as they completed a senior thesis, a graduation requirement, with a few of his students being recognized with distinction for their work. Before teaching at a college preparatory academy, Mr. Mendoza received a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Pepperdine University where he wrote a thesis on rational choice theory and congressional politics with Professor Jason Blakely and a thesis on psychological naturalism with Professor Garrett Pendergraft. 

Areas of Interest

Spanish Scholasticism; Spanish Colonial Political Thought; Utopian and Dystopian Political Theory; Renaissance Political Theory