MELISSA S. WILLIAMS
CAREER AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS /
STATEMENT OF VIEWS
Melissa S. Williams is Professor of
Political Science and founding Director of the Centre for Ethics at the
Williams’s research is predominantly in
contemporary democratic theory; it frequently addresses core concepts in
political philosophy through the lens of group-structured inequality, social
and political marginalization, and cultural and religious diversity. Her first
book, Voice, Trust and Memory:
Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation (Princeton
University Press, 1998), develops a theoretical defense of descriptive
representation for historically marginalized groups. It won the Foundations of
Political Theory Section’s award for the best first book in political
philosophy. More recent work has
addressed the relationship between peace and justice in the liberal theory of
toleration; conceptions of citizenship in an era of globalization; and justice
for indigenous peoples. Williams currently has two book projects under way: Equality, for the Routledge
Series on Concepts in Political Philosophy; and Reconstructing Impartiality, which begins from feminist and
difference-based critiques of liberal impartiality and seeks to develop an
alternative account of “situated” or “contextual” impartiality within
law-governed relationships. She has published thirty articles on these and
other topics in Political Theory, the
Canadian Journal of Political Science,
numerous edited volumes, and other international journals.
Williams has also co-edited a number
of works: Identity, Rights and Constitutional Transformation (1999; with
Patrick Hanafin); Political
Exclusion and Domination (NOMOS XLVI, 2005, with Stephen Macedo); Humanitarian
Intervention (NOMOS XLVII, 2005, with Terry Nardin);
Toleration and Its Limits (NOMOS
XLVIII, forthcoming, with Jeremy Waldron); and Moral Universalism and Pluralism (NOMOS XLIX, forthcoming, with
Henry Richardson).
Williams was Visiting Faculty Fellow
at the Center for Ethics and the Professions at