Terry Aladjem

Terry Aladjem

Lecturer on Social Studies
Senior Scholar in Residence, Harvard Global Health Education and Learning Incubator
Terry Aladjem

Terry Aladjem is a Lecturer on Social Studies and will teach the junior tutorial “Law and American Society” in the spring and serves on the Board of Advisors for Social Studies. He received his B.A. from Antioch College and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in political theory. His research interests include: Legal and political theory, studies in American politics and culture, memory and identity, liberalism, law and society, feminist theory and critical theory. Terry was Liberal Arts Fellow of Law and Political Philosophy at the Harvard Law School before joining Social Studies where he investigated problems of legal punishment and the death penalty. His resulting book, The Culture of Vengeance and the Fate of American Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2008) blends cultural analysis, philosophy, and legal analysis to examine the punitive turn in American justice. Terry’s article, “The Philosopher’s Prism: Foucault, Feminism and Critique” appeared in Political Theory (May, 1991) and in Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault (Penn State Press, 1996) and another, “Of Truth and Disagreement: Habermas, Foucault and Democratic Discourse,” in History of European Ideas (vol. 20, 1995).

Terry has served as the Executive Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard and is now a Senior Scholar in Residence at the Harvard Global Health Education and Learning Incubator. He ran a summer program on Teaching Excellence for faculty at University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands with Dutch and American colleagues, and has served as a visiting fellow at the University of Warwick Institute of Advanced Study in Coventry, UK. Terry is a recipient of the Stanley Hoffmann Prize for Excellence in Teaching in Social Studies (2007), and of the Star Family Prize for Excellence in (Faculty) Advising at Harvard College (2015).


2023-24 Courses
Social Studies 98cl. Law and American Society (Spring)

Contact Information

William James Hall 308
p: 617-495-4823