Mark Lilla (born 1956) is an American political scientist, historian of ideas, journalist, and professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York City. A self-described liberal, he typically, though not always, presents views from that perspective. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and was educated at the University of Michigan and Harvard University. After holding professorships at New York University and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he joined Columbia University in 2007 as Professor of the Humanities. He has been awarded fellowships by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Institut d’études avancées (Paris), the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and the American Academy in Rome. He lectures widely and has delivered the Weizmann Memorial Lecture in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, the Carlyle Lectures at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, and the MacMillan Lectures on Religion, Politics, and Society at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. In 1995 he was inducted into the French Order of Academic Palms. From 1980-86 he was executive editor of the public policy quarterly, '' The Public Interest''. He is married to the artist Diana Cooper and is father of Sophie Marie Lilla (1994).

Career

Mark Lilla’s most recent book, ''Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know'', is an essayistic examination of the human will to ignorance. Ranging from the Book of Genesis and Plato’s dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, he explores the many paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves, as well as the fantasies this impulse lead human beings to entertain―the illusion that the ecstasies of prophets, mystics, and holy fools offer access to esoteric truths; the illusion of children’s lamb-like innocence; and the nostalgic illusion of recapturing the glories of vanished and allegedly purer civilizations. Lilla sees this work as the fruit of his lifelong engagement with the contested heritage of the modern Enlightenment. His first book, '' G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern'' examines an early figure in the European Counter-Enlightenment, and has an affinity with the works of

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

; with

Ronald Dworkin Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American legal philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at ...

and

Robert B. Silvers Robert Benjamin Silvers (December 31, 1929 – March 20, 2017) was an American editor who served as editor of ''The New York Review of Books'' from 1963 to 2017. Raised on Long Island, New York, Silvers graduated from the University of Chicag ...

, he edited the memorial volume, ''The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin'' in 2001. In the 1990s he wrote widely on twentieth-century European philosophy, editing with Thomas Pavel the New French Thought series at Princeton University Press, and writing ''The Reckless Mind'', a meditation on the "tyrannophilic" bent of twentieth-century

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...

. His wide-ranging study of modern

political theology Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which Theology, theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Scho ...

, ''The Stillborn God'', based on the Carlyle Lectures delivered at

in 2003, was named one of the "100 best books of the year" by ''The New York Times Book Review'' and one of the 150 best books of the year by ''Publishers Weekly''. In 2015, he received the Overseas Press Club of America's award for Best Commentary on International News for a series of articles in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

'' on the French response to the terrorist attacks of that year. Those articles became part of ''The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction'', a study of how nostalgia has shaped modern politics, from Middle America to the Middle East. In recent years he has also been involved in public debates over the future of American liberalism and the Democratic Party, which is the focus of '' The Once and Future Liberal''.

Books

* www.theguardian.com
''review''
(24 Nov 2024) * * * * * * * *

References

External links

*
New York Review of Books
- Books and articles at New York Review of Books authored by Lilla
Mark Lilla Columbia homepage
- Lilla's current Columbia University homepage {{DEFAULTSORT:Lilla, Mark Writers from Detroit 21st-century American philosophers American male non-fiction writers University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Harvard Kennedy School alumni New York University faculty University of Chicago faculty Columbia University faculty 1956 births Living people Isaiah Berlin scholars

Career

Books

See also

References

External links