By Nate Hoekstra, GVSU

Does getting mad about politics work?

Politics in the United States today is an exceptionally divisive topic, and has generated significant anger among many political circles — an emotional response that influential philosopher Martha Nussbaum will argue isn’t the best way to generate change.

Nussbaum, a world-renowned philosopher, author and law professor, will discuss anger and its place in politics and personal lives, while addressing its effectiveness as a change agent. Martha Nussbaum: Anger and Revolutionary Justice will be hosted by Grand Valley State University’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies on Tuesday, April 4 at 7 pm at the L.V. Eberhard Center, Grand Valley State University’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested at hauensteincenter.org/rsvp.

Nussbaum, recently named the 2017 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will discuss the concept that anger is not an effective response to perceived injustice, noting that three of recent history’s great freedom movements were directed by leaders who aspired to non-anger, including Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.

She will discuss her book Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice and explore why there will always be a need for leaders who can recognize the humanity of people who think differently when the stakes are high.

Nussbaum’s Jefferson Lecturer distinction is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. She is also the University of Chicago’s Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics. In 2016, she was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy. Other awards include The Centennial Medal of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and the American Philosophical Association’s Philip Quinn Prize.

She is one of only two women to give the John Locke Lectures at Oxford, the most eminent lecture series in the field of philosophy.

Nussbaum has taught at Harvard, Brown University and Oxford, and has published 24 books and more than 500 academic papers.

For more information, visit hauensteincenter.org