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Ivan Ascher

  • Associate Professor, Political Science
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies, Political Science
  • Internship Coordinator, Political Science

Education

PhD, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Office Hours

On sabbatical Spring 2026

Courses Taught

  • Modern Political Thought (POL SCI 382)
  • Contemporary Political Theory (POL SCI 386)
    • The Politics of Neurodiversity (Spring 2023)
    • Biology, Digitality, Carbon (Spring 2020)
  • Political Ideologies (POL SCI 255)
  • First Year Seminar (POL SCI 193)
    • Capitalism & Its Critics (Fall 2025) 
    • Democracy in America from Tocqueville to the Present (Fall 2024)

Research Interests

Professor Ascher specializes in modern political and social theory. His current research is on autism and political theory. He also has hopes of completing a graphic novel inspired by Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Selected Publications

Ascher, Ivan. Portföy Toplumu: Kapitalist Öngörü Tarzı Üzerine (Turkish translation of my book, Portfolio Society) Istanbul: Açılım Kitap. 2018: 174
Ascher, Ivan. Why Markets Can't Cool the Planet Project Syndicate (translated in eleven languages). 2018.
Ascher, Ivan. Portfolio Society: On the Capitalist Mode of Prediction Zone/MIT Press. 2016.
Ascher, Ivan. “The Subprime Subject of Ideology” After Capitalism Ed. Petro, Patrice S., and Ferguson, Kennan. (2016).
Ascher, Ivan. “"Moneybags Must Be So Lucky": Inside the Hidden Abode of Prediction” Political Theory 44. (2015): 4-25.
Ascher, Ivan. “Critical Exchange. Specters of Weber: Science as a Vocation in the Age of Neoliberalism” Contemporary Political Theory 14.4 (2015).
Ascher, Ivan. “Capitalism” Encyclopedia of Political Thought Ed. Gibbons, Michael, Coole, Diana, Ellis, Elisabeth, and Ferguson, Kennan. Wiley-Blackwell. (2014): 430-441.
Ascher, Ivan, and . “We Are All 'Occasional Politicians: For a New Weberian Conception of Politics” Constellations 20.1 (2013): 138-149.
Ascher, Ivan. “Difference Theories” Encyclopedia of Political Theory Ed. Bevir, Mark. SAGE Publications, Inc.. (2010).
Ascher, Ivan. “Max Weber and the 'Spirit' of The Protestant Ethic” Journal of Classical Sociology 10.2 (2010): 99-108.
Ascher, Ivan. “Deciding on the Borderland: The Ukrainian Elections of 2004” Theory & Event 8.2 (2005).

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.