Wendy Brown, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley and one of the country’s  leading contemporary political theorists, will deliver the 2013 Jesse Daniel Ames lecture on Monday, April 8, at 4:15 p.m. in Olin 105. The title of her talk is “Homo Oeconomicus, Homo Politicus, and Predicaments of Contemporary Democracy.”

Brown received her Ph.D. in political philosophy from Princeton University. Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley in 1999, she taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz and at Williams College.

Brown’s research analyzes fundamental questions of power, political identity, sovereignty, citizenship, religion, secularism, toleration, and capital in the late modern era of Western liberal democracies and in the global neoliberal context. She has authored or co-authored eight books, including Walled States, Waning Sovereignty; Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Empire and Identity; Edgework: Essays on Knowledge and Politics; Politics Out of History; States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity; and Manhood and Politics: A Feminist Reading in Political Theory.

Her lecture considers the specific form of homo oeconomicus in contemporary neoliberal reason, and the implications for the ideal or practice of democracy when this figure displaces its companion in modernity, homo politicus. 

Brown also will participate in two events on Tuesday, April 9 – a discussion group with students and a workshop for faculty members. The student group will discuss Brown’s essay “We Are All Democrats Now.” The faculty workshop will focus on a chapter from Brown’s recent book project.

The Smith Library Center has set up a site that provides access to some of Brown’s writings and interviews. The site may be accessed at http://libguides.southwestern.edu/jda

The Jesse Daniel Ames Lecture is sponsored annually by the Feminist Studies Program. For more information on the lecture series, visit http://www.southwestern.edu/departments/feminist/opportunities/index.php

For more information on Brown, visit http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/person_detail.php?person=225