Iris Marion Young (2 January 1949 - 1 August 2006) was Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and affiliated with the Center for Gender Studies and the Human Rights program there. Her research covered contemporary political theory, feminist social theory, and normative analysis of public policy.
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Young's books include Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory (1990), Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy (1997), Inclusion and Democracy (2000), On Female Body Experience: 'Throwing Like a Girl' and Other Essays (2005) and Responsibility for Justice (2010). Her writings have been translated into several languages, including German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Croatian, and she lectured widely in North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
Young's teaching interests ranged broadly, including contemporary theories of justice; democracy and difference; feminist political theory; continental political theory including Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas; ethics and international affairs; gender, race and public policy.
Young was awarded a PhD in philosophy by the Pennsylvania State University in 1974. Before coming to the University of Chicago she taught political theory for nine years in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and before then taught philosophy at several institutions, including the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Miami University. During the summer term of 1995 Young was a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Young held visiting fellowships at several universities and institutes around the world, including the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the Australian National University, and the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa.
Young died, aged 57, on 1 August 2006 after an 18-month struggle with esophageal cancer.[1] In recognition of her work with the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago, the Center's distinguished faculty lecture series was renamed in her honor in November 2006. She was also honored at Penn State University through a series of gifts which created the Iris Marion Young Diversity Scholar Award as part of the association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory's and the Rock Ethics Institute's Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute. This Institute is designed to encourage undergraduate students from under-represented groups to consider future study in the field of philosophy. Students who are part of this summer institute are awarded the Iris Marion Young Diversity Award and their studies during the institute include her work.
Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute [1]