The Robert P. Benedict Lectures in the History of Political Thought were endowed by former BU political science professor Robert Benedict. In 1965, Benedict’s will established a fund for annual lectures by specialists in this field. The lecture series was revived in the late 1990s.\u00a0Some of the lectures have been incorporated into conferences, and many have been the basis for important books on political philosophy and political theory.<\/p>\n
Upcoming Benedict Lecture<\/strong><\/p>\n April 4, 2014 The College of Arts & Sciences at Boston University currently boasts an impressive number of faculty engaging with questions of \u201cfemale authority\u201d in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries\u2014that is, the ways in which female power, and the concept of women\u2019s agency more broadly conceived, were constituted, represented and defended during the transition to modernity. This colloquium will bring in outside speakers to discuss these questions of female authority. For a list of speakers and further information, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Past Benedict Lectures<\/strong><\/p>\n 2012-13 Julia Annas (Arizona), Virtue and the Rule of Law in Plato and Beyond<\/em><\/p>\n 2010-11 Istvan Hont (Cambridge) Rousseau and Smith: Political Theorists of Commercial Society.\u00a0<\/em>Watch the after-lecture discussion here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2009-2010 Danielle Allen (Institute for Advanced Study), Why Plato Wrote.<\/em> Published as: Why Plato Wrote<\/em> (Malden, MA: Wiley, 2010). Read more about the book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2008-9 Susan James (Birkbeck College), Narrative as the Means to Spinozist Freedom<\/em>. Delivered as part of a conference on Spinoza\u2019s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.<\/em><\/p>\n 2007-8 Carla Hesse (Berkeley), Enlightened Women and the Origins of Feminism. <\/em>Delivered as part of a conference on Enlightenment and the Origins of Feminism.<\/p>\n 2007-8 Michael Rosen (Harvard), “The Shibboleth of All Empty-Headed Moralists”: The Place of Dignity in Ethics and Political Philosophy<\/em>. Published as: Dignity: Its History and Meaning<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012). Read more about the book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2003-4 Quentin Skinner (Cambridge), Thomas Hobbes: Freedom, Representation, and the State.<\/em>\u00a0Published as: Hobbes and Republican Liberty<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Read more about the book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2003-4 David Armitage (Columbia University), The Foundations of Modern International Thought.<\/em>\u00a0Published as: The Foundations of International Thought<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Read more about the book here<\/a>. Or watch David Armitage discuss his book on YouTube here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 2002-3 Janet Coleman (London School of Economics), Public Rationality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.<\/em><\/p>\n 2001-2 Richard Tuck (Harvard), Hobbes and Rousseau<\/em>.<\/p>\n 1998-9 Margaret Jacob (UCLA), The Culture of Politics in Early Modern Europe.<\/em><\/p>\n 1997-8 David Gauthier (Pittsburgh), Rousseau: The Social and the Solitary.<\/em>\u00a0Published as: Rousseau: The Sentiment of Existence (<\/em>Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Read more about the book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Robert P. Benedict Lectures in the History of Political Thought were endowed by former BU political science professor Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3521,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12874"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12913,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12874\/revisions\/12913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nColloquium: Questions of Female Authority in the 17th and 18th Centuries<\/em>
\n8:15 am\u20144 pm
\nPhotonics Center, 8 St. Mary’s Street, Room 901<\/p>\n