Andreas Hess, University College Dublin, talks about his research on the political theorist Judith N. Shklar (1928-1992) who taught at Harvard's Department of Government for more than forty years. Shklar influenced a considerable number of social scientists and humanities scholars who today hold key positions, and not just in higher education, in the US and abroad. Shklar took issue with those who were looking for intellectual gurus or who wanted their academic teacher to function as a substitute parent and she was equally critical of those who wanted to walk the corridors of power (like her fellow students from early Harvard days, Brzezinski and Kissinger). She insisted instead that it was crucial to prepare students for the real world by showing that political ideas could really make a difference.
