Religion and Equality in Political Life

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -Martha Nussbaum is an internationally known philosopher whose work focuses on ancient Greek philosophy, contemporary moral and political philosophy, feminism and the connections between philosophy and literature. The Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, the Law School and the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, Nussbaum will offer this year’s Kraemer Lecture on "The Fixed Star: Religion and Equality in American Political Life" at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29, in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main.

The Kraemer Lecture will be based on her forthcoming book, Liberty of Conscience: The Attack on America's Tradition of Religious Equality, which deals with the historical roots and philosophical grounds of constitutional and legal protections for religious liberties in the United States.

The Kraemer Lectures commemorate William S. Kraemer, who was chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Arkansas from 1953 to 1976.

Nussbaum received her bachelor’s degree from New York University and her master’s and doctorate from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard, Brown and Oxford universities. From 1986 to 1993, she was a research adviser at the World Institute for Development Economics Research in Helsinki, a part of the United Nations University. She has chaired the committee on international cooperation and the committee on the status of women of the American Philosophical Association, and currently chairs its new committee for public philosophy.

Nussbaum has been a member of the Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies. She received the Brandeis Creative Arts Award in Non-Fiction for 1990, and the PEN Spielvogel-Diamondstein Award for the best collection of essays in 1991. Her work Cultivating Humanity won the Ness Book Award of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 1998, and the Grawemeyer Award in Education in 2002.

Sex and Social Justice won the book award of the North American Society for Social Philosophy in 2000. Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law won the Association of American University Publishers Professional and Scholarly Book Award for Law in 2004.

She has received honorary degrees from 25 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe, including Grinnell College, Williams College, Bard College, Knox College, The University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, the University of Toronto, the New School University, the University of Haifa, Ohio State University and Georgetown University.

Other publications include The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, The Therapy of Desire, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, Women and Human Development and Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.

Her current works in progress include The Cosmopolitan Tradition, Democracy in the Balance: Violence, Hope, and India's Future and Compassion and Capabilities.