Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago and a renowned scholar in the fields of social justice, the ethics of development, the role of women in society and theories of emotion, will present Carleton College’s weekly convocation address on Friday, October 4 from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Nussbaum’s presentation will focus on the new religious intolerance and overcoming the politics of fear.
This event is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at go.carleton.edu/convo/.
Nussbaum is the University of Chicago’s Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics. She is also an associate in the Classics Department, the Divinity School, and the Political Science Department, as well as a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a Board Member of the Human Rights Program.
Nussbaum currently chairs the new Committee for Public Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association and in the past, she has chaired its Committee on International Cooperation and its Committee on the Status of Women.
She has been awarded honorary degrees from thirty-seven colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe, which include Grinnell College, Williams College, The College of William and Mary, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and the University of Haifa (Israel).
Her book Cultivating Humanity won the Ness Book Award of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 1998. The New York Times’ James Shapiro wrote, “Her book is a formidable, perhaps definitive defense of diversity on American campuses.”
In 2000, Nussbaum wrote the book Hiding From Humanity, which won the Association of American University Publishers Professional and Scholarly Book Award for Law in 2004. The book argues against using shame and disgust as the bases for legal arguments.
In 2013, Harvard University will publish her current book in progress, Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. The book presents a case for the importance of love in democracy.
For more information about this event, including disability accommodations, contact the Carleton College Office of College Relations at (507) 222-4308. The Skinner Memorial Chapel is located on First Street between College and Winona Streets in Northfield.