Nancy Fraser
Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science.
PhD 1980, City University of New York.
Office: Room 225, 65 Fifth Avenue
Office Hours: Email Nancy Shealy, secretary at shealy@newschool.edufor appointment or check updated listed at Student Advisor's Office
Phone: (212) 299-5733 &
          (212) 229-5747
Fax: 212-807-1669
E-Mail: FraserN@earthlink.net

Link to CV

Concentrations:
Social and political theory; feminist theory; contemporary French and German thought.

Current research:
Book-in-progress: Postnational Democratic Justice
Until recently, most theorists of justice have tacitly assumed the Westphalian sovereign state as the frame of their inquiry. Today, however, the acceleration of globalization has altered the scale of social interaction. Thus, questions of social justice need to be reframed. Whether the issue is structural adjustment or indigenous land claims, immigration or global warming, unemployment or homosexual marriage, the requirements of justice cannot be ascertained unless we ask: Who precisely are the relevant stakeholders? Which matters are genuinely national, which local, which regional, and which global? Who should decide such questions, and by what decision-making processes? I propose to address such questions by theorizing the relations among three fundamental dimensions of justice: distribution, recognition and representation. I shall argue that questions of distribution and recognition are today inextricably imbricated with questions of representation. I will also argue that under current conditions such questions do not admit of any single wholesale answer. As a result, there is no alternative to a politics of representation, in which the framing of questions of justice becomes a matter for democratic deliberation. Thus, a politics of redistribution and recognition must be joined to a politics of representation, oriented to decision-making processes and governance structures. Put differently, the theory of social justice must become a theory of democratic justice.

Teaching:
During this academic year, Nancy Fraser will be teaching the following graduate-level courses:

Publications:
Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (2003), co-authored with Axel Honneth. Also published in German and Czech translations.

The Radical Imagination: Between Redistribution and Recognition (2003), in Swedish translation.

Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the "Postsocialist" Condition (1997). Also published in German, Spanish, and Japanese translations.

Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (1994), co-authored with Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, and Drucilla. Also published in German translation.

Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (1989). Also published in German translation.

Repenser la justice sociale: De la redistribution à la reconnaissance? (forthcoming in 2004), in French translation.

Tracer l'imaginaire féministe: Entre la redistribution et la reconnaissance (forthcoming in 2004), in French translation.

Pragmatism, Critique, Judgment: Essays for Richard J. Bernstein, co-edited with Seyla Benhabib (forthcoming in 2004).

Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency, and Culture, co-edited with Sandra Bartky (1992).

Read Nancy Fraser's introduction to a recent book: Mapping the Radical Imagination.

Nancy Fraser is also the editor of Constellations, an international journal of critical and democratic theory. Click here, and visit the Constellations website, or click here and read an article from the Summer 2003 publication: "From Discipline to Flexibilization? Re-reading Foucault in the Shadow of Globalization".
  

Recent Activities:

Appointments:

1. Spinoza Professor of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Spring 2004
2. Jantina Tammes Professor of Gender Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, Spring 2003
3. Research Fellowship, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2004-2005
4. Vice-President and Member, Conseil scientifique, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, 2003-present.

Conference sessions on Nancy Fraser's recent work:

1. "Paradoxes of Recognition and Redistribution: Nancy Fraser meets her Critics," papers by Kevin Olson, Leonard Feldman, Estelle Ferrarese, and Christopher Zurn, response by Nancy Fraser, American Political Science Association meeting, Philadelphia, August 2003
2. "Session on Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Recognition or Redistribution?," papers by Linda Alcoff, Kevin Olson, Joel Anderson, response by Nancy Fraser, Critical Theory Roundtable, Stony Book NY, October 2003
3. "Scholar's Session: Nancy Fraser," papers by Mitchell Aboulafia and Christopher Zurn, response by Nancy Fraser, SPEP, Boston, November 2003