Bonnie Honig

Who is Bonnie Honig?

Bonnie Honig is a political, feminist, and legal theorist specialized in democratic theory. In 2013-14, she becomes Nancy Duke Lewis Professor-Elect of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science at Brown University, succeeding Anne Fausto-Sterling in the Chair in 2014-15. Honig was formerly Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. She received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, an MSc from LSE, and her undergraduate degree from Concordia University in Montreal.

In April 2013, Honig delivered the “Thinking Out Loud” Lectures in Sydney, Australia. In the lectures, entitled “Public Things,” Honig draws on D.W. Winnicott and Hannah Arendt to conceptualize the importance of public things to democratic life.

Honig's most recent book is Antigone, Interrupted. In 2012, her previous book, Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy was awarded the David Easton Prize. Also in 2012, she won the Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory for "Ismene's Forced Choice: Sacrifice and Sorority in Sophocles' Antigone."

Honig taught at Harvard University for several years before moving to Northwestern University. The 1997 decision by then-President of Harvard Neil Rudenstine not to offer Honig tenure was highly controversial, and attracted harsh criticism from a number of prominent Harvard professors as a violation of Rudenstine's stated commitment to increasing the number of tenured female professors.