Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon will speak on the topic "Politics as a Vocation" Thursday, Jan. 17, at 5 p.m. in the lecture hall of the Ave Maria University academic building.

Professor Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, She was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in May of 2012. From 2008 to 2009, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See and prior to that she was a member of President Bush's Council on Bioethics (2001-2004). A prolific scholar, Professor Glendon writes and teaches in the fields of human rights, comparative law, constitutional law, and political theory. Among her works are Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (1989), the critically acclaimed Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse (1993), and A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2002). Her lecture Thursday is drawn from her latest book, The Forum and the Tower (2011).

Sponsored by a grant from the Stuck with Virtue Conference Series, the Ernest L. Fortin Lecture Series is named after Fr. Ernest L. Fortin, A.A. Fr Fortin taught at Assumption College, Laval University, and Boston College, where he held joint appointments in the Theology and Political Science Departments and codirected the Institute for the Study of Politics and Religion. The author of books on Dante and St. Augustine, his collected essays have been published in four volumes. Focusing on the intersection of philosophical, theological, and political reflection, the lectures in this series explore the diverse but interrelated themes that animated Fr. Fortin's life as a teacher and scholar.

The lecture is free and open to the public.