The next speaker in the Patten Lecture Series is Martha Nussbaum, philosopher and influential intellectual from the University of Chicago Law School. Both lectures will be at 7:30 p.m. in Chemistry, room 122, and are free and open to the public. She'll speak on:
"Constitutions and Capabilities: History of an Idea" on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Nussbaum's first lecture investigates the roots of the idea that all citizens in a nation are equally entitled to a set of basic opportunities, with a set of substantial preconditions for a dignified human life, based on the teachings of Aristotle and the Stoics. Nussbaum will map its influence on eighteenth-century thinkers, such as Smith and Paine, and the American Founding. Finally, Professor Nussbaum examines this idea's embodiment in some strands of the U.S. tradition of constitutional law.
"Capabilities and Today's Supreme Court" on Thursday, February 14, 2008 Her second lecture maps the decline of this "capabilities approach" in the recent jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on a group of cases from the 2006 Term, involving employment discrimination, abortion, and affirmative action. Nussbaum argues that a type of obtuse formalism is in the ascendancy on the Court, displacing a realistic and historically informed focus on what people are actually able to do and to be.
Martha Nussbaum
Philosopher
Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago
Lectures: Tues., Feb. 12 & Thurs., Feb. 14 On Campus: February 11-15
Dame Gillian Beer
Literary Critic
Professor of English Literature, Cambridge University
Lectures: Tues., Apr. 8 & Thurs., Apr. 10 On Campus: April 6-11
