Wanna Be A Public Intellectual? Date Cass Sunstein!
In the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine, you'll find their list of the world's top 100 public intellectuals. The list appears here (and you can vote for your top five). Bios of the honorees -- and we must confess, some of these names didn't ring a bell -- appear here.
The public intellectuals explicitly identified on the list as lawyers, judges, or legal scholars are (in alphabetical order):
-- Aitzaz Ahsan, president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association, and a leader in the Pakistan People's Party;-- Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate;
-- Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig; and
-- Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, who wrote the book on public intellectuals.
And here are two other honorees with legal links:
-- University of Chicago law professor and philosopher Martha Nussbaum; and-- journalist, Harvard Law School graduate, and Kennedy School of Government professor Samantha Power.
What do Professors Nussbaum and Power share in common? Cass Sunstein, as you may recall.
Professor Nussbaum is a former flame of Professor Sunstein, while Professor Power is his current main squeeze. Rumor has it that his move to Harvard Law School from his longtime academic home, the University of Chicago Law School, was prompted by a desire to be closer to the center of power -- Samantha Power, that is.
In their paper Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship, Professors Paul Edelman and Tracey George declared Cass Sunstein to be the "Kevin Bacon" of the law. But it looks like his influence extends beyond the narrow world of legal academia, into the World of Ideas, writ large.
In sum, two percent of the world's top 100 public intellectuals are former or current lovers of Cass Sunstein. This should provide consolation for Cass, who didn't make the list himself.
Professor Sunstein, you are the man.
The Top 100 Public Intellectuals [Foreign Policy]
The Top 100 Public Intellectuals: Bios [Foreign Policy]
Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein: Collaboration Networks in Legal Scholarship [SSRN / Green Bag]
Earlier: The Real Reason Cass Sunstein's Going to Harvard? He's Got the Power
(45) 
Cass Sunstein is probably one of the most overrated people in academia. What does he say that's ever enlightening? He just says a LOT about a whole lot of nothing.
Classic post, Lat. Good stuff.
Completely agree with 1:56. And even if anything useful ever did come out of his mouth during class, we were too distracted by the twisty fetal positions he always used to tie himself into while he lectured, and how he couldn't lecture without playing with this feet.
excellent job on this post
the title is kind of a bait and switch. i skimmed the first four names and expected to read about their dating sunstein.
Sunstein is the key note speaker at the Boston Bar Association Law Day dinner this month . . . anyone out there think it might be worth going to hear him speak?
2:14 - Who knows, maybe one time Posner and Sunstein got really drunk in the Chicago faculty lounge....
How can Richard Dawkins be on there? That's ridiculous. Hopefully it's for his science and not garbage philosophy. I'm disappointed that Hilary Putnam did not make the list.
2:16-yes, if only to wonder what two hotties like N and P find attractive in a man who has issues in personal grooming as well as finishing sentences.
1:56 said exactly what I came here to say. As for Dawkins, I'm with 2:26. 2:31, they're not hotties - stop looking at the Vogue-ish shots and try to find some candids of them.
They are not "hotties" even in the Vogue-ish shots. Power in particular.
Guy Incognito:
I'm taking a class with N, and let me just say: the lady has got serious legs and knows how to put together a color palette. Her smile is age-defying. I am currently debating my sexual orientation because of N.
I defer to your judgment as far as P is concerned.
<3s,
2:31
Agree with 2:45. N is a real cougar.
Every time I see a note in my casebook citing or quoting Sunstein, and I read it, I come out thinking, so what? What's so enlightening about that? That's nothing I couldn't think up...and I wonder why law professors feel so compelled to cite him all the time.
2:33 - yes, I am sure a guy who has an unnatural love of cartoons is pulling in tons of "hotties." Are you registered? I know you are a sex offender, I just want to make sure you are registered.
"Guy" you also have a fetish for calling women ugly or at least denying they are attractive, hell, you put down Megyn Kelly's looks. You are surely either a fat, ugly, bitter woman or a queer. I am guessing the latter.
2:54 - Thanks for my daily lulz. It actually took me a minute to decipher the comment - unnatural love of cartoons? Is he talking about me?
In any event, you were correct on all counts: in fact, I am a fat, ugly, bitter woman and a queer. Some say I look like a cross between Oscar Wilde, Stalin, and Roseanne Barr - can you imagine? ;)
Haha - Guy Incognito is a queer. I knew I wasn't the only one who thought so.
Guy Incognito = pwned by 2:54.
What an awkward response by Guy, huh?
Concur -- Guy Incognito is the opposite of straight.
"In sum, two percent of the world's top 100 public intellectuals are former or current lovers of Cass Sunstein."
A beautiful sentence. Great post!
dawkins' science is garbage too. he's an extreme adaptationist, and most biologists reject his main contribution: the gene as the unit of selection.
it's also generous to call his work science. it's not like he does field or lab work. he does watered-down philosophy of science.
Unless there is truth to the Sunstein/Posner love affair mentioned by 2:20, I think that 2% is a misleading score for Sunstein. I think it is safe to assume he isn't batting both ways, so I ran through the list a counted the number of females on the list.
I don't know which is more disturbing -- that there was only 8 females out of 100, or that Sunstein has slept with 25% of them (that we know of...).
Great post, Lat.
Hey Chuck Norris, roundhouse kick yourself in the face.
Don't forget that Amartya Sen, also on the list, is Nussbaum's ex. So the total goes up to at least 3% if you include lovers of lovers.
3:34 - you have to ask because I'm the only person on the planet with the capability to do so.
On second thought, roundhouse kick Guy Incognito in the face for being queer.
N is built like a gazelle. I can’t speak to P, but N was dating down. N is brilliant, and Cass can’t remember to zip up his fly on a regular basis.
She looks like her legs would be hairy..
They are both cougars and I would let them do anything they wanted to do. Gazelles need love too.
Juice Newton thinks they are A. OK, brutha. They both be like a whole basket full'a steamin corn bred. Ummmmm.
Man, that must be some socially awkward, pale, uptight, overthought, self-important, and all-around boring lovin'.
Has Bar Review started?
He does have awfully large hands and feet.
Samantha Power looks exactly like Caroline Kennedy.
Who the hell is Cass Sunstein, and who cares?
Power looks nothing like Caroline Kennedy.
I am sick of people here pretending unattractive people are "hotties." Spend a week in the SEC.
Or, for that matter, spend 3 minutes at any bar in New York.
A man whore. I know you are supposed to separate the man from his teaching, but I can't do it. I think less of him because of his inability to maintain a virtuous lifestyle. He cheated on his wife. He may have cheated on Nussbaum, although I do think it's less likely that this happened.
I feel bad for him in the sense that he has parts of his life that many of us would never have to worry about moving beyond - at worst - our families and near friends, broadcast across the internet. Nevertheless, he is a noted scholar and this is the 21st century. Unfortunately, this means fair game.
I'm guessing he thinks he's such a smooth operator that he can get away with shit like this. Maybe he can. Then again, do note that there are operators just as smooth who also maintain moral integrity. Every edge counts.
Cass Sunstein is God damn hideously ugly. Dating him is a high price to pay.
WTF? No Dworkin?
Vandy profs have been getting a good amount of ATL lovin recently-- Edelman, George, Farahany-- keep up the good work
It seems most of the people giving Guy Incognito a hard time (Around 2:50-ish) failed to recognize he was the only one there who had a registered name, real or not. Perhaps the rest of you were too busy looking over your shoulder to see if a senior associate was coming around the corner of your cubicle to give you an assignment or you were too rushed trying to get to class at your fourth tier law school. Or perhaps you have the imaginative mental zeal of a fart sniffing trade school dropout. Leave the guy alone. And, yeah, I know, I am a guest here also. However, if you look at the time I post this, you might think I have little time to spend with you nitwits. I have a day job and I am rather good at it.
co-sign 12:40. By the way, the reference to Guy Incognito, and the accompanying picture, are hilarious.
Professor George rocks. Vandy stole her from NU Law in 2003 or so. It was a sad day for the Wildcats.
I was just a little lad, never knew no good from bad...