KIE welcomes five new senior fellows
Luke Bretherton (Divinity), Allen Buchanan (Philosophy), Tim Buthe (Political Science), Larry Helfer (Law), and Alex Kirshner (Political Science) have joined the Kenan Institute for Ethics as Senior Fellows. Both Bretherton and Kirshner are new to Duke.
Bretherton, formerly Reader in Theology & Politics and Convener of the Faith & Public Policy Forum at King’s College London, is Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School. His current areas of research focus on the intersections between Christianity, grassroots democracy, globalization, responses to poverty, and patterns of inter-faith relations. His forthcoming book, with the working title of Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Cities and the Politics of the Common Good (Cambridge University Press), draws on a three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project for which he was principal investigator (2008-2011). Bretherton’s work has been published in academic journals (Modern Theology, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Studies in Christian Ethics) and in the mainstream media (including The Guardian, The Times and the Huffington Post).
Buchanan is the James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy. His research focuses on three areas: bioethics (mainly the ethics of enhancement and of synthetic biology), the philosophy of international law, and social moral epistemology. He teaches courses on human rights (the nature of human rights, the justifications for claims about the existence of human rights, the reasons for and against having an international legal human rights system, and the legitimacy (or otherwise) of efforts to promote compliance with human rights norms) and science, ethics, and democracy. Recent past works include Beyond Humanity and Better Than Human.
Buthe is Associate Professor of Political Science. His research focuses on the evolution and persistence of institutions, the interaction between domestic and international institutions, and the ways in which institutions enable and constrain actors. As Co-Principal Investigator of the International Standards Project, he directed multi-country, multi-industry business surveys about the global private politics of setting standards for international product and financial markets. This research is presented in New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy. Buthe’s other work focuses on institutional development and the regulation of competition in the European Union, foreign direct investment by multinational corporations, the allocation of foreign aid by humanitarian and development NGOs, and business partisanship.
Helfer is Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law. An expert in international law whose scholarly interests include interdisciplinary analysis of international law and institutions, human rights, and international intellectual property law and policy, Helfer co-directs Duke Law School’s Center for International and Comparative Law. He has authored more than 60 publications and has lectured widely on his diverse research interests, which also include international litigation and dispute settlement and lesbian and gay human rights. His articles have appeared in leading American law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and Duke’s Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed and international law journals, and recent books include Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Human Rights (2d ed., Foundation Press, 2009).
Kirshner is Assistant Professor in Duke’s Department of Political Science. His research cuts across democratic theory, comparative politics and constitutional law, and he just completed a book investigating the paradoxical ethical dilemmas raised by antidemocratic opposition to democratic government (forthcoming-Yale University Press). Kirshner’s current research explores the intellectual history and practice of legitimate opposition and the competition between religious parties in contemporary Egypt and Tunisia.
