Rita Koganzon’s research focuses on the themes of education, childhood, authority, and the family in historical and contemporary political thought. Her first book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought, examined the justifications for authority over children from Jean Bodin to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and explored how Locke and Rousseau departed from their absolutist predecessors by refusing to model the family on the state but nonetheless preserved authority over children within the family for the sake of the liberty of adults. In addition to her research, she contributes book reviews and essays to the Hedgehog Review, National Affairs, The Point, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. She is an associate professor at the School of Civil Life and Leadership at UNC-Chapel Hill.