Hanna Fenichel Pitkin
Hanna Fenichel Pitkin | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 17, 1931 |
| Died | May 6, 2023 (aged 91) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Spouse | John Schaar (died 2011) |
| Awards | Skytte Prize (2003) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD) |
| Thesis | The Theory of Political Representation (1961) |
| Influences | Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political science |
| Sub-discipline | Political theory |
| School or tradition | Berkeley school |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley (PhD) |
| Doctoral students | |
| Notable works | The Concept of Representation (1967) |
| Influenced | Alice Crary |
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.
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 is the daughter of Otto Fenichel, and Clare (née Nathansohn) and married political theorist John Schaar.
Pitkin was born in Berlin, fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933 to Oslo and later moving to Prague in 1935.[2] At nearly seven years old, Pitkin emigrated to Los Angeles with her parents and other German-Jewish refugees.[2]
Education
Pitkin completed her first year of graduate schooling at UCLA.[2] In 1961, she received her doctoral degree in Political Science at UC Berkeley.[3] She cites her past status as a refugee to be the origin of her interest in her field of study.[2] In 1966, she began her career teaching political science at UC Berkeley.[4] With her status as a teacher and mentor, she was recognized as Professor Emerita at UC Berkeley.[3] In 1982, she was granted the Distinguished Teaching Award from UC Berkeley.[5] Pitkin was the first woman in her alma mater's Political Science department to enter the tenure track and was once the sole woman to hold a prominent position in a university committee.[4]
Pitkin died on May 6, 2023, at the age of 91.[3]
Political representation
The Concept of Representation (1967), Pitkin's first book and most notable publication, is derived from her dissertation.[3] In The Concept of Representation, Pitkin described four types of representation: formalistic, descriptive, symbolic and substantive.[6] Representation is analyzed through how humans perceive both themselves and the world around them in both social and political interactions.[7]
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).
- Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel (April 28, 2023). The Concept of Representation (1 ed.). University of California Press. doi:10.2307/jj.2711645. ISBN 978-0-520-34050-3.[8][9][10]
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".[11] This has been awarded to twenty five recipients since its creation in 1995.[12] As of 2025, only eight of the twenty five recipients have been women.[13] 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
- ^ Contemporary Authors Online, s.v. "Hanna Fenichel Pitkin." Accessed March 5, 2008.
- ^ a b c d "A Conversation with Hanna Pitkin". March 2, 2015. doi:10.1146/do.multimedia.2015.03.03.360.
- ^ a b c d "Passing of Renowned Faculty member Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, 1931–2023". Berkeley. May 12, 2023. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
- ^ a b "Hanna Pitkin | UC Berkeley Political Science". polisci.berkeley.edu. Retrieved November 12, 2025.
- ^ Distinguished Teaching Award, UC Berkeley
- ^ "Political Representation". plato.stanford. Revised. August 29, 2018 [January 2, 2006].
- ^ "The Concept of Representation by Hanna Pitkin - Paper". University of California Press. Retrieved November 12, 2025.
- ^ Buchstein, Hubertus (2007), Kailitz, Steffen (ed.), "Hanna F. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1967", Schlüsselwerke der Politikwissenschaft (in German), Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 356–359, doi:10.1007/978-3-531-90400-9_95, ISBN 978-3-531-90400-9, retrieved July 5, 2025
- ^ Fain, Haskell (1980). Pitkin, Hanna (ed.). "Hanna Pitkin's The Concept of Representation". Noûs. 14 (1): 109–113. doi:10.2307/2214898. ISSN 0029-4624. JSTOR 2214898.
- ^ Dovi, Suzanne (December 10, 2015), Levy, Jacob T. (ed.), "Hanna Pitkin, The Concept of Representation", The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory (1 ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198717133.013.24, ISBN 978-0-19-871713-3, retrieved July 5, 2025
- ^ Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science Archived August 30, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, official website.
- ^ "Johan Skytte Lectures". American Political Science Association (APSA). Retrieved November 12, 2025.
- ^ "PrizeLaureates". Skytteprize. Retrieved November 12, 2025.