The Human in Politics

Contributor(s): Professor Anne Phillips | In this inaugural lecture, to celebrate her appointment as the Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science, Anne Phillips addresses the status of the human in politics. Is what Hannah Arendt called 'the abstract nakedness of being human' sufficient to establish principles of solidarity or equality? And can we talk of what, as humans, we have in common without thereby dismissing as irrelevancies our gender, sexuality, or 'race'? Anne Phillips is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government. She is also currently Director of the LSE Gender Institute. She joined the LSE in 1999 as Professor of Gender Theory, and was Director of the Gender Institute until September 2004. She subsequently moved to a joint appointment between the Gender Institute and Department of Government. She is a leading figure in feminist political theory, and writes on issues of bodies and property, democracy and representation, equality, multiculturalism, and difference. Much of her work can be read as challenging the narrowness of contemporary liberal theory. In 1992, she was co-winner of the American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck Award for Best Book on Women and Politics published in 1991 (awarded for Engendering Democracy). She was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Aalborg in 1999; was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Political Science Programme of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2002-6; and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. In 2008, she received a Special Recognition Award from the Political Studies Association, UK, for her contribution to Political Studies. In 2012, she was awarded the title Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. Simon Hix is Professor of European and Comparative Politics and Head of the Government Department at LSE.