George Kateb is

William Nelson Cromwell William Nelson Cromwell (January 17, 1854 – July 19, 1948) was an American attorney active in promotion of the Panama Canal and other major ventures especially in cooperation with Philippe Bunau-Varilla. Life and career He was born and ra ...

Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

. A staunch individualist, he has written scholarly works on

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...

, and

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

and on the ethical dimensions of the individual in a constitutional democracy. More recently he has turned his attention to what he sees as the increasing erosion of individual liberty wrought by the Bush administration and the poisonous influence of religious, ethnic and statist group identity on morality. Kateb earned his A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. at Columbia University and was a

Junior Fellow The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He then taught at

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

for thirty years before joining the faculty at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1987. As a member of the executive committee of the University Center for Human Values he was involved with the search committee that somewhat controversially appointed the noted Australian philosopher

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...

to a chair in

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

in 1999. Kateb is a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. He has also served as vice president of the American Society of Political and Legal Philosophy and president of the New England Political Science Association. He has also served as a member of the editorial board or consulting editor of the ''

Journal of the History of Ideas The ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering intellectual history and the history of ideas, including the histories of philosophy, literature and the arts, natural and social sciences, religion, an ...

'', the

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...

, Alternative Futures, the ''

American Political Science Review The ''American Political Science Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf by Cambridge ...

'', ''Political Theory'', and '' Raritan Quarterly Review''. He is a recipient of the Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities from

. He retired from teaching in 2002.

Bibliography

* ''Utopia and Its Enemies'' (1963) * ''Political Theory: Its Nature and Uses'' (1968) * ''Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil'' (1984) * ''The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture'' (1992) * ''Emerson and Self-Reliance'' (1994) * ''Patriotism and Other Mistakes'' (2006) *
Human Dignity
' (2011)

References

External links

Princeton Report On Knowledge Forum with Kateb

Kateb's contributions to the New York Review of Books

Kateb's Princeton faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kateb, George 1931 births Living people Amherst College faculty American male non-fiction writers American political philosophers American political writers Columbia University alumni Harvard Fellows Princeton University faculty