KU News Release

Hall Center announces visit by author, scholar Susan Estrich

LAWRENCE — The Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas has announced the first speaker in the 2008-2009 Humanities Lecture Series.

Susan Estrich, the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California, will discuss “The 2008 Election: What’s at Stake” at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.

Estrich is one of the nation’s leading legal scholars. Known for her quick wit and humor as a commentator on Fox News Channel, Estrich was the first woman to run a national presidential campaign, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review and the youngest woman to be tenured at Harvard Law School.

A former Supreme Court law clerk, Estrich is a passionate believer in the rule of law. Estrich is perhaps best known in academic circles for her path-breaking work on the law of rape, notably her book “Real Rape.” A senior adviser to four presidential campaigns, Estrich is a regular contributor to the Washington Post and Newsweek. Her book, “The Case for Hillary Clinton,” is an impassioned argument for Clinton as the Democrats’ leading candidate for president in 2008.

Founded in 1947, the Humanities Lecture Series is the oldest continuing series at KU. More than 150 eminent scholars from around the world have participated in the program, including authors Vladimir Nabokov and Aldous Huxley. Recent scholars have included Edward Said, Dava Sobel, Sherman Alexie and E.O. Wilson. Shortly after the program’s inception, a lecture by one outstanding KU faculty member each year was added to the schedule.

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