Joshua Anderson received his B.A. degree from Carleton College and his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. Between his undergraduate and graduate studies he worked as a research assistant for the Wisconsin Education Association Council and before coming to St. Olaf College he taught political theory and American politics for 3 years at the University of Minnesota and Augsburg College. His research crosses disciplinary boundaries to examine the origins of the social sciences in the nineteenth-century United States and what their history tells us about how knowledge and expertise operate in democratic politics. At St. Olaf he teaches courses in American Politics and American Political Thought.