Richard Fenno
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Richard F. Fenno, Jr. is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Rochester. He recieved his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1956. Shortly thereafter he received a post at Wesleyan University. He was denied tenure at Wesleyan University because the department mistakenly and ironically determined his work was not political science.[1] From Wesleyan he moved to the University of Rochester where he has been ever since. He is also a former president of the American Political Science Association.
At Rochester, Fenno went on to write Congressmen in Committees (1975) and Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (1978), which established him as a preeminent scholar of American politics. With Bill Riker, Fenno built the Rochester political science department. Riker focused on positive political science, while Fenno focused on establishing Rochester as a center for congressional studies and American politics. His most recent books include Congressional Travels (2007), detailing the under appreciated representational function of the congressperson, Going Home (2003), about African-American representatives in Congress, and Congress at the Grassroots (2000), about southern politics and political change.
His style of Political Science research is referred to as "Soak and Poke." Rather than relying primarily on data sets and rational choice theory, Fenno studies by observing the movements of political actors on the stage of politics. His book Home Style is written in this fashion.
