Laura K. Field

Laura K. Field is a nonresident fellow in the Governance Studies program at Brookings, and both a writer and political theorist in Washington, D.C. She holds a Ph.D. in political theory and public law from the University of Texas at Austin and has held faculty positions at Rhodes College, Georgetown University, and American University. Field is one of the country’s foremost experts on populist intellectualism and the American right. Her book “Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right” will be published with Princeton University Press in November, 2025. 

Field is currently a visiting scholar in residence at American University and a senior advisor for the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University. A scholar of Rousseau and Nietzsche, she has a longstanding interest in political culture and how thinking (and writing, and rhetoric) shapes our lives, which pairs well with current questions about the crisis of liberalism and rising authoritarianism around the world. Field has published academic papers in The Journal of Politics, The Review of Politics, Polity, and numerous edited volumes. In addition to her academic work, she has worked extensively on the right-wing (“New Right”) intellectuals who have risen to prominence under Trumpism, and has written for The New Republic, Politico, The Bulwark, and other publications. She is regularly cited in the national and foreign press.