The Department of Government and the Political Theory Colloquium present:

Mara Marin (University of Chicago)

"Political Obligation as Commitment"

Wed., October 24, 4:30-6

White Hall 114

Mara Marin is finishing her doctoral dissertation, "Taking Commitments Seriously" at the University of Chicago. She has previously studied political philosophy at Oxford University and gender studies at Central Eurropean University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of questions of authority and membership, and their implications for justice, democratic equality, and state neutrality. She is currently teaching a class on /Feminist Political Theories /and, together with Lauren Berlant, a class on/ Problems in the Study of Sexuality/.
For more information, please contact Anna Marie Smith (ams3@cornell.edu).

A Public Forum on Science and Politics
The War on Science: What Have We Learned?

A lecture by Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, followed by faculty panel and audience discussion. Panel members include: Kurt Gottfried, Physics; Ron Herring, Government; Steve Hilgartner, Science & Technology Studies; Ted Lowi, Government; Jon Shields, University of Colorado; and Janice Thies, Crop and Soil Sciences.

Chris Mooney's book has documented increasingly intrusive partisan effects on the practice of science, and serious consequences thereof. The broader questions include relationships between science and state, government and scientists, and real effects of distorted knowledge or ignorance. Beyond partisan science, how inevitable is the intertwining of science and politics given the embedded nature of science in society?

This forum is featured in the Provost Seminar Series and is co-sponsored by the Ben and Rhoda Belnick Fund for Government Studies at Cornell and the Institute for the Social Sciences.

The Political Theory Colloquium in the Department of Government presents:

Lida Maxwell

"Expanding the Legal Imaginary: Politics, Drama, and Popular Creativity"

Oct. 17, 4:30-6:30, White Hall 114

Lida Maxwell received her PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University in 2006, and is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Government Department here at Cornell. Her research and teaching focus is in political theory - particularly in 18th century political thought, law and politics, and contemporary democratic theory. In her dissertation, which she is turning into a book, Maxwell turns to readings of Montesquieu, Burke, and Arendt to critique the centrality of proceduralism in contemporary political thinking about law and argues that we should expand our legal imaginary to include other modes of legality - modes such as theatricality in the courtroom that brings out legal truth (in Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem), a sympathetic union between peoples (in Burke's prosecution of Warren Hastings), or an appeal to the "spirit" of laws that may contravene formal law (Montesquieu). Maxwell is also working on a project on political trials.

The Institute for European Studies' Women and the State in Europe Series:

On Sept. 7 we welcome Amy Mazur to campus to speak on Making Alliances Between Women's Movements and Women's Policy Agencies Work: Towards State Feminism? at 12:15PM in 153 Uris Hall.

Amy G. Mazur is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington State University. Her research and teaching interests focus on comparative feminist policy issues with a particular emphasis on France. She is co-editor of Political Research Quarterly. Her books include: Comparative State Feminism (Sage, 1995) (editor, with Dorothy McBride Stetson); Gender Bias and the State: Symbolic Reform at Work in Fifth Republic France (Pittsburgh University Press, 1995); State Feminism, Women's Movement, and Job Training: Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy (Routledge, 2001) (editor); and Theorizing Feminist Policy (Oxford , 2002).

On Sept 25th the series closes with Joan Scott, who will deliver a talk entitled Cover-up: French Gender Equality and the Islamic Headscarf at 4:30PM in the A.D. White House.

Joan Scott is Professor at the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Her work has challenged the foundations of conventional historical practice, including the nature of historical evidence and historical experience. Drawing on a range of philosophical thought, as well as on a rethinking of her own training as a labor historian, she has contributed to the formulation of a field of critical history. Written more than twenty years ago, her now classic article, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," continues to inspire innovative research on women and gender. In her latest work she has been concerned with the ways in which difference poses problems for democratic practice. She has taken up this question in her most recent books: Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man; Parité: Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism; and The Politics of the Veil. She is currently preparing a collection of her essays that deals with the uses of psychoanalysis, particularly fantasy, for historical interpretation. The book will be called The Fantasy of Feminist History.

Sponsors of these talks include Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies, German Studies, Government Department-Belnick Fund, Institute for European Studies, the Institute for the Social Sciences, and European Union Commission.

The ISS Contentious Knowledge Seminar Series presents:

Free Markets and Social Protest: The Contentious Politics of Technocracy in Latin America

Ken Roberts, Contentious Knowledge Team Leader and Prof. of Government

Tuesday, September 4, 12-1:30 p.m.
ISS Conference room (146 Myron Taylor Hall)
Lunch served at noon.
Directions: http://www.socialsciences.cornell.edu/about.html

Latest News: APSA Dissertation Awards Given to Two Cornell Grads

POLITICAL THEORY WORKSHOP

Government Department, Cornell University

Organizer: Jason Frank (jf273@cornell.edu)

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