Rousseau occupies Houghton
Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have been born in 1712, but for graduate student Tali Zechory, his work is as relevant today as it was centuries ago. “It was Rousseau who coined the term ‘rights of man,’ or what we now call human rights, in ‘The Social Contract,’” Zechory said, referring to Rousseau’s 1762 publication. “And yet his ideas have so much resonance today. He was cited in two New Yorker articles only last month; Elizabeth Warren has been talking about ‘The Social Contract.’ … Rousseau is very much alive and kicking.” Professor Christie McDonald, the Smith Professor of French Language and Literature and of Comparative Literature, is Zechory’s adviser and has studied Rousseau’s oeuvre since she was a graduate student. “Rousseau’s work has to do with the relationship of an emerging society, one human to another, and the importance of empathy over conflict,” she said. “It laid the basis for his later...