Ilan Stavans and Martha Nussbaum in Conversation: Point/Counterpoint Series, Amherst College 11/2018

Join us as Professor Ilan Stavans speaks with celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum.
The "Globalism and Its Discontents: Point/Counterpoint" conversation series features Amherst College professor, and host of NEPR's In Contrast, Ilan Stavans and a guest engaging in thoughtful discussion and attempting to bridge the ideological divide growing in our nation.
The rise of populism worldwide today, personified by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, is a fierce reaction to globalism policies of the past few decades. Anti-immigration movements in Europe and the United States; assaults on free speech; racial profiling; polarized politics; intolerance for gender, economic and linguistic diversity; the building of walls and the renegotiation of international trade treaties; the tension between rural and urban communities; and the questioning of the basic tenets of pluralism are some of the symptoms. Democracy itself might be at peril.
Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, with appointments in the law school and the philosophy department. The author of more than 20 books and numerous essays and articles, she is the editor of another 21 books and the recipient of many prestigious awards. A fellow of the British Academy, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society, she has received honorary degrees from 56 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.
Breadth is a signature feature of her work. Her scholarship ranges from the study of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and literature all the way to modern political theory and policy. Along the way, she has found time to examine such weighty matters as gender equality, gay rights, the nation of India, international development and the case for an education in the humanities. Yet the variety of subject matter can sometimes disguise the underlying unity of purpose.