ibhf fellows

Jean Bethke Elshtain
Fellow

Jean Bethke Elshtain is a political philosopher whose work shows the connections between our political and our ethical convictions. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, a position she has held since 1995. Prior to that, she taught at the University of Massachusetts and at Vanderbilt University where she was the first woman to hold an endowed professorship in the College of Liberal Arts in the history of that institution. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale. Professor Elshtain holds nine (9) honorary degrees and in 1996, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has authored and/or edited twenty books and written some five hundred essays. Several of her books have won awards and been named as best in their field in the year of publication. Professor Elshtain born in the high plains of Northern Colorado and grew up in the village of Timnath, Colorado, population 185. Her journey has taken her all over the world but she remains, in many ways, a daughter of the high plains where she grew up among people who were hard-working, forthright and dedicated to their families, friends and community.

Jean Bethke Elshtain is a contributing editor for The New Republic . She has delivered several hundred guest lectures in universities in the United States and abroad, of which over three dozen have been endowed lectureships. Professor Elshtain has been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; a Scholar in Residence, Bellagio Conference and Study Center , Como Italy ; a Guggenhein Fellow; a Fellow of the National Humanities Center; and in 2003 - 2004, she held the Maguire Chair in Ethics at the Library of Congress. Professor Elshtain also serves on the Scholars Council, The Library of Congress; on the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Program in American Constitutional Ideals at Princeton University; The Board of Trustees of the National Humanities Center; and the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy. Professor Elshtain was a Phi Beta Kappa Scholar for 1997-1998 and served as Vice President of the American Political Science Association for 1998-1999.

She is also the recipient of the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for excellence in classroom teaching - the highest award for undergraduate teaching at Vanderbilt University. In 2002, she received the Goodenow Award of the American Political Science Association, the Association's highest award for Distinguished Service to the Profession. In 2005-2006, Professor Elshtain will deliver the prestigious Gifford Lecturers at the Universities of Edinburgh. Previous lecturers include Hannah Arendt and Reinhold Niebuhr.