HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Mary Golden Dietz (born 1951) is the John Evans Emerita Professor of Political Theory at
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...
. She holds a joint appointment in Northwestern's Department of Political Science and its Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. She is the author of many books and articles in
feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist ...
and the
history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and her work has been translated into French, Spanish, Czech, Turkish, and Japanese. She edited the journal ''
Political Theory Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
'' from 2005 to 2012. Prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern in 2007, she taught at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
. She announced her retirement in 2022, after which Northwestern named her Professor Emerita.


Education

Dietz graduated ''Magna Cum Laude'' from
Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...
in 1972 with a degree in political science. She did her master's and doctoral work at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
during the era of the
Berkeley School of political theory The Berkeley school of political theory is a school of thought in political theory associated originally with the work of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, some of whom formulated and popularized its ideas. The school of thought was ...
when political theorists
Hanna Pitkin Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (born July 17, 1931)''Contemporary Authors Online'', s.v. "Hanna Fenichel Pitkin." Accessed March 5, 2008. is an American political theorist. She is best known for her seminal study ''The Concept of Representation'', publi ...
,
Michael Rogin Michael Paul Rogin (June 29, 1937 – November 25, 2001) was an American political scientist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley.Janet Gilmore, University of California Press Relations"UC Berkeley professor Michael Rogin, politica ...
, and Norman Jacobson were all working at Berkeley. While there she developed an interest in the work of
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 ...
through graduate seminars with Pitkin. She obtained her PhD in 1982. Her dissertation project was a critical reconstruction and interpretation of the political thought of the French mystic
Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...
, who she encountered in the ''
New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
'' referenced as "the 'other' most famous 'female philosopher' of the twentieth century." This research became her first book ''Between the Human and the Divine: The Political Thought of Simone Weil'' (1988). Dietz's study of Weil was one of the first works dealing explicitly with the political aspects of Weil's thinking, and is also noted for her use of
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and her incorporation of
feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist ...
into Weil studies.Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "Dietz, Between the Human and the Divine: The Political Thought of Simone Weil (Book Review)" ''Political Theory'' 18, no. 3 (1990): 508–12. .


Selected bibliography


Books

*''Between the Human and the Divine: the Political Thought of Simone Weil'' (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987) *''Turning Operations: Feminism, Arendt, and Politics'' (New York: Routledge, 2002)


Edited books

*''Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory'' (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1990)


Selected articles

* “Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking.” ''Political Theory'' 13, no. 1 (1985): 19–37. * “Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and the Politics of Deception.” ''The American Political Science Review'' 80, no. 3 (1986): 777–99. * “Context Is All: Feminism and Theories of Citizenship.” ''Daedalus'' 116, no. 4 (1987): 1–24. * "Debating Simone de Beauvoir.” ''Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'' 18, no. 1 (1992): 74–88. * “‘The Slow Boring of Hard Boards’: Methodical Thinking and the Work of Politics.” ''The American Political Science Review'' 88, no. 4 (1994): 873–86. * “Current Controversies in Feminist Theory.” ''Annual Review of Political Science'' 6, no. 1 (2003): 399–431. * “Between Polis and Empire: Aristotle’s Politics.” ''The American Political Science Review'' 106, no. 2 (2012): 275–93. * “Lying as Politics in the Age of Trump.” Public Seminar, October 23, 2018, https://publicseminar.org/2018/10/lying-as-politics-in-the-age-of-trump/.


References


External links

* https://polisci.northwestern.edu/people/core-faculty/mary-dietz.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Dietz, Mary G. 21st-century American philosophers American historians of philosophy American political philosophers Feminist philosophers Northwestern University faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Mount Holyoke College alumni