URPP Public lecture by Bernard Harcourt

Few people in Western democracies, if any, are opposed to “equal justice under the law.” Even someone like President Donald Trump has himself vowed to “restore the rule of law.” The expression is emblazoned on the West Pediment of the United States Supreme Court building, and every justice on the Court believes that they are fulfilling that ideal. But we all know that it is just an ambition, a wish—and a wish that is not being fulfilled. It also rests on a description of law’s neutrality that is somewhat fantastic. In reality, the rule of law is, or has become, our secular religion today—and like religion, it is what Freud would call an illusion. In his book, The Future of an Illusion, Freud speculated that religion would someday give way to science. It is hard to imagine law succumbing to the same fate. What then is the future of the rule of law?

This lecture is open to the public.

Date: Thursday, March 19, 2026

Time: 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Venue: RAA G-01

Bernard E. Harcourt is Corliss Lamont Professor of Law and Civil Liberties at Columbia University, where he is also a faculty affiliate of African American and African Diaspora Studies, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Department of Political Science. His research spans critical theory, political economy, punishment practices, and legal and social philosophy. He is the founding director of the Initiative for a Just Society at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, which links critical theory with practical legal and policy work.

He is the author or editor of over a dozen books, including Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory (2023), Critique & Praxis (2020), and The Counterrevolution (2018), as well as several works on punishment, surveillance, and legal theory. He has also edited and annotated volumes of Michel Foucault’s lectures, including the Pléiade edition of Discipline and Punish.

Harcourt began his legal career representing individuals on Alabama’s death row and continues to work pro bono on behalf of clients facing capital punishment and indefinite detention. In 2019, he received the Norman J. Redlich Capital Defense Distinguished Service Award from the New York City Bar Association.

Before joining Columbia, he held the Julius Kreeger Professorship at the University of Chicago and chaired its Political Science Department. He has held visiting positions at Harvard, NYU, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and currently serves as directeur d’études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Take tram 9 or 5 to "Kantonsschule".  The lecture hall is located at Rämistrasse 59 (Asien-Orient-Institut).