Lucas Morel is the Lewis G. John Term Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Claremont Graduate School. He is the author of Ralph Ellison's American Democratic Individualism (forthcoming), Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope: A Political Companion to Invisible Man, editor (2004), and Lincoln's Sacred Effort: Defining Religion's Role in American Self-Government (2000).