Jean Bethke Elshtain

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Jean Bethke Elshtain (born 1941) is an American feminist political philosopher. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University as well as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Bible Literacy Project, publishers of the curriculum The Bible and Its Influence for public high school literature courses.

Along with Sara Ruddick, she is known as a proponent of maternal feminism, which emphasizes the importance of traditional family roles in maintaining a stable and functional society. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

She has written numerous essays and authored and/or edited twenty books, including Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy and Augustine and the Limits of Politics. Ms. Elshtain is the recipient of nine honorary degrees and received the 2002 Frank J. Goodnow Award, the American Political Science Association's highest award for distinguished service to the profession. Ms. Elshtain received a B.A. and M.A. from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University.

In 2006, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and also delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, joining such previous Gifford Lecturers as William James, Hannah Arendt, Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martha Nussbaum, who is also in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.

Elshtain is currently Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University, a three year visiting appointment in the Department of Government.

[edit] Major Works by Jean Bethke Elshtain

Just War against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (2003)
Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (2002)
Who Are We? Critical Reflections and Hopeful Possibilities. Politics and Ethical Discourse (2000)
New Wine in Old Bottles: International Politics and Ethical Discourse (1998)
Real Politics: Political Theory and Everyday Life (1997)
Augustine and the Limits of Politics (1996)
Democracy on Trial (1995)
Power Trips and Other Journeys (1990)
Women and War (1987)
Meditations on Modern Political Thought (1986)
Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (1981)