About the Ambedkar Law Lectures
Delivered by prominent scholars of public law and other students of politics, the lectures aim to further our understanding of justice, democracy, equality, development, and governance from historical, comparative, and philosophical perspectives.
The Ambedkar Law Lectures are named in honor of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, an influential Indian political thinker and anti-colonial activist who studied at Columbia University and played a central part in framing the Constitution of independent India.
The Ambedkar Law Lectures are chaired by Columbia Law School Professors Mala Chatterjee, Jamal Greene, and Madhav Khosla.
2024 Lectures
The 2024 Ambedkar Law Lectures will take place on Tuesday 24 September (JGH 104) and Wednesday 25 September (JGH 106) from 5.00-6.30 PM. The lectures, titled Reading Fanon, will be delivered by Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah (NYU) and will focus on the writings of Frantz Fanon, one of the twentieth century’s most important theorists of colonialism, revolution, and freedom.
On each day, the lectures will have two commentators: Jeremy Kessler (Columbia Law School) and Aslı Ü. Bâli (Yale Law School) on 24th September, and Kaiama L. Glover (African American Studies, Yale University) and Michele Moody-Adams (Philosophy, Columbia University) on 25th September.
Walk-ins are welcome to attend if space allows.
Historical Injustice, Agency, and Resentment
In societies marked by deep and enduring structural inequality—often along lines of caste, race, gender, or other forms of identity—how is the responsibility for such injustice assigned? How is the agency necessary to overcome historical injustice imagined? These lectures will use Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s writings as a starting point to explore the moral psychology of responding to historical injustice.
Lecturer:
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton University; Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
With commentary by:
David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English, Yale University
Jamal Greene, Dwight Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Katharina Pistor, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law, Columbia Law School
Watch the 2022 Ambedkar Law Lectures: Historical Injustice, Agency, and Resentment, held on March 28 and March 31.
