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Prominent Political Philosopher to Speak at Law School Lecture Series

April 12, 2005

Nationally acclaimed political theorist and social critic Michael Walzer will speak on Zionism, Judaism, and the questionable future of national liberation at a three-day lecture series to be held at Northwestern University School of Law.

Walzer, the UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, will present a three-part lecture, titled "The Paradox of National Liberation," as part of the School of Law's Julius Rosenthal Foundation Lecture Series.

The first speech, "The Paradox: Three Examples," will be presented at 4 p.m. on April 12; the second, titled "Zionism and Judaism," at noon on April 13; and the third, "The End of National Liberation?" at noon on April 14. All lectures will take place in Rubloff 150 at the School of Law, 357 East Chicago Avenue, and are free and open to the public.

Walzer is one of the world's most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics and has published highly praised works addressing a variety of topics, including the morality of warfare, the distribution of health care and political power, the need to tolerate social difference, and the nature of justice itself.

His books (among them Just and Unjust Wars, Spheres of Justice, The Company of Critics, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, and On Toleration) and essays have played a part in the revival of practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life.

Currently, Walzer is working on the toleration and accommodation of "difference" in all its forms, and also on the third volume of The Jewish Political Tradition, a comprehensive collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.

He received his BA from Brandeis University in 1956 and attended Cambridge University on a Fulbright Fellowship from 1956 to 1957. He received a PhD from Harvard University in 1961, and taught at Harvard and Princeton University before becoming a permanent faculty member at The Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science in 1980.

Walzer is also a contributing editor for The New Republic and an editor of Dissent magazine, a political journal now in its 50th year. His articles and interviews frequently appear in the world's foremost newspapers and journals.

The Rosenthal Lecture Series was established in 1919 in memory of Julius Rosenthal (1827-1905), an eminent and beloved member of the Chicago Bar. The series is one of the principal programs supported by the Julius Rosenthal Foundation and has assumed a preeminent position in the legal world. Publication of the lectures has made a notable contribution to legal literature and scholarship for more than 70 years.

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