Hanna Fenichel Pitkin

Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (July 17, 1931 – May 6, 2023) was an American political theorist. She was best known for her seminal study The Concept of Representation, published in 1967.

For her stepmother, the psychoanalyst, see Hanna Fenichel.

Hanna Fenichel Pitkin
Born(1931-07-17)July 17, 1931
Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany
DiedMay 6, 2023(2023-05-06) (aged 91)
Berkeley, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
SpouseJohn Schaar (died 2011)
AwardsSkytte Prize (2003)
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
ThesisThe Theory of Political Representation (1961)
InfluencesKarl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell
Academic work
DisciplinePolitical science
Sub-disciplinePolitical theory
School or traditionBerkeley school
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Doctoral students
Notable worksThe Concept of Representation (1967)
InfluencedAlice Crary

Pitkin's diverse interests ranged from the history of European political thought from ancient to modern times, through ordinary language philosophy and textual analysis, to issues of psychoanalysis and gender in political and social theory.

Biography

Pitkin was born on July 17, 1931.[1] She was a professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Daughter of Otto Fenichel, Pitkin was born in Berlin and emigrated to the United States in 1938; her family had fled Nazi Germany for Oslo and Prague in the interim.[1] She received her Doctor of Philosophy degree from UC Berkeley in 1961. In 1982, she was granted the Distinguished Teaching Award from UC Berkeley.[2]

Pitkin died on May 6, 2023, at the age of 91.[3]

Political representation

In The Concept of Representation Pitkin described four types of representation: formalistic, descriptive, symbolic and substantive.[4]

Books

Pitkin's books were The Concept of Representation (1967), Wittgenstein and Justice (1972, 1984, 1992), and Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (1984, 1999), in addition to numerous articles and edited volumes. In 1998 she published The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of "the Social". A wide selection of her writings is collected and thematized in Hanna Fenichel Pitkin: Politics, Justice, Action (2016).

Awards and legacy

In 2003, she was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science "for her groundbreaking theoretical work, predominantly on the problem of representation".[5] She was married to political theorist John Schaar. Some of her students are noteworthy political scientists such as David Laitin (Stanford University), Dan Avnon (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), Lisa Wedeen (University of Chicago), and Mary G. Dietz (Northwestern University).

See also

References
  1. Contemporary Authors Online, s.v. "Hanna Fenichel Pitkin." Accessed March 5, 2008.
  2. Distinguished Teaching Award, UC Berkeley
  3. "Passing of Renowned Faculty member Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, 1931–2023". Berkeley. May 12, 2023. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
  4. "Political Representation". plato.stanford. Revised. August 29, 2018 [January 2, 2006].
  5. Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science Archived August 30, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, official website.
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