Harvard Law professor and former ambassador to the Holy See to discuss politics as a vocation Feb. 28

Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, will speak about “Politics as a Vocation?” as part of the University of Richmond’s annual Marshall Center Lecture Series Feb. 28, 4:30 p.m. in Jepson Hall, Room 120. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required at http://jepson.richmond.edu. A reception and book sale will take place after the lecture.

Glendon will discuss how prominent political leaders of the past dealt with many of the issues contemporary politicians face, including whether one person can really make a difference, balancing family life and the perceived “dirtiness” of politics. She will draw from the biographical sketches of her latest book, “The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Glendon served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 2008-09. In 2004, she was appointed the first female president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope John Paul II. A scholar of bioethics, international human rights law and comparative constitutional law, she received the National Humanities Medal in 2005. Some of her other books include “Rights Talk: A Nation Under Lawyers” and “A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The Marshall Center Lecture Series is a program of the John Marshall International Center for the Study of Statesmanship within University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies.

For more information, contact Shannon Best at sbest@richmond.edu  or 804-287-6522.

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