Political Science

Education

• PhD in Political Science (University of Michigan, 2024)
• MA in Social Science Research (University of Chicago, 2014)
• BSc Political Science, BSc History (Belmont University, 2013)

Biography

I am a political theorist who investigates questions about democracy, institution-building, and historical justice primarily through global Black political thought and African politics. In the classroom, I am committed to helping students approach political challenges systematically and empathetically. My goal is for students to understand the world around them, their place in that world, and the systems that connect them to the past and to others. My research focuses on African nationalist movements from the mid-20th Century to broaden the scope of the history of political thought and explore what it means to build just political communities in response to colonialism and racial capitalism. I am currently working on components of two book projects—one based upon my dissertation entitled Temporalities of Struggle:
Beginning & Belonging in the African Socialist Tradition, and another that reads African nationalist thinkers alongside W.E.B. DuBois to theorize “abolition democracy” under different political and historical contexts. I am also managing editor at the journal Contemporary Political Theory.

Interests and Expertise

• Comparative Political Theory
• African Politics
• Critical Theory
• International Political Economy
• Anti- & post-colonialism

Courses

• Fall 2025
  o PLSC 210 Intro to Political Analysis
  o PLSC 211 Intro to Comparative Politics
  o PLSC 213 Intro to Political Theory

Selected Publications and Presentations

• Suell, D.T. (2024) “The Obsolescence of African Socialism: Nyerere, Kaunda, and rethinking ‘Marcusean’ Utopia from the Third World” in Creolizing Marcuse, edited by Jina Fast, Nicole Marbury, and Sid Simpson. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Suell, D.T. (2022) “The Creation of Capitalist Time: Rethinking Primitive Accumulation through Conservation.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40(5), 881-899.
• Suell, D.T. (2022). Development as rebellion: A biography of Julius Nyerere. Contemporary Political Theory, 21(suppl1), 38-44. 
• Suell, D.T. (2020). “Leave the Dead Some Room to Dance: Postcolonial Founding and the Problem of Inheritance in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests.” Political Theory, 48(3), 330–356.