X
GO
Lori J. Marso

Council

Lori J. Marso is a feminist political theorist engaging an eclectic field of objects (theory, film, literature) and academic disciplines (on gender, race, post-colonial studies, queer theory, history of political thought). She is the Doris Zemurray Stone Professor of Modern Historical and Literary Studies, and Professor of Political Science at Union College in Schenectady NY.  Marso is the author, co-editor, or editor of several books, most recently Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter (Duke 2017), Politics, Theory, and Film: Critical Encounters with Lars von Trier (co-edited with Bonnie Honig, Oxford 2016), and Fifty-One Key Feminist Thinkers (editor, Routledge, 2016).  Her articles have received the Iris Marion Young and Susan Okin Award for Feminist Political Theory, the Contemporary Political Theory Award, the Marion Iris Prize, and the Betty Nesvold Women and Politics Award, and Marso was a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities year-long writing fellowship.  She was the winner of Union College’s campus wide teaching award, the Stilman Prize, in 2011, and has been a finalist for the prize several times. 

She worked with several colleagues in political science and political theory when she was the “Critical Exchanges” Editor for Contemporary Political Theory from 2014 to 2017, and, with Jill Frank, she is now the consulting editor for Political Theory (editor Lawrie Balfour).   Marso has been the chair of the Foundations section of the APSA for the past four years, and before that, was a member of the board.  She is also a member of the editorial board of Theory and Event, and Simone de Beauvoir Studies

Marso has a broad view of the experiences of scholars at several kinds of institutions as she received her undergraduate degree at the University of South Dakota, graduate degrees at London School of Economics and New York University, started her teaching career at University of Texas at San Antonio where she taught for three years, and then moved to Union College where she has taught for 21 years. 

Statement of Views:
The APSA is changing, no longer completely dominated by men in suits, and I am encouraged by increasing participation by female and non-white scholars.  I want to further encourage members at all institutions, and with all roles—adjuncts, visitors, graduate students and post-docs—to participate more broadly.  I am also interested in the ways the APSA might serve its members who are targeted on free speech violations and may or may not be adequately supported by their institutions and the AAUP.