Michael Walzer To Speak At Institute For Advanced Study On "The Paradox Of National Liberation"

Political theorist Michael Walzer will deliver a lecture on "The Paradox of National Liberation," December 15 at 4:30 p.m. at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The lecture will draw upon three examples of post- World War II national liberation, in India, Israel, and Algeria, to explore a fundamental question: "Why," Walzer will ask, "did modern movements for national liberation, even when they succeeded in liberating their nations and establishing independent states, fail to produce the kind of politics that their early leaders and activists favored?"

The UPS Foundation Professor in the Institute�s School of Social Science, Walzer has authored more than a dozen books on political theory and moral philosophy including, most recently, Arguing About War (2004). His work in just-war theory, which considers moral questions inherent in warfare, has played a prominent role in debates on U.S. military operations in Iraq and other parts of the world. A forthcoming book, Politics and Passion, will be published in January 2005 by Yale University Press.

Walzer is the editor of Dissent, a quarterly magazine of independent social thought. He is a contributing editor of The New Republic and has served on the editorial boards of the academic journals Political Theory and Philosophy and Public Affairs.

A graduate of Brandeis University, Walzer was a Fulbright fellow at Cambridge University and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University. He was a professor at Princeton University and at Harvard University before joining the permanent faculty of the Institute in 1980.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It will take place in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute campus, with a reception to follow in the Common Room of Fuld Hall. For more information, please contact Susan Butler at (609) 734-8202.