The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) has elected three New York University faculty as fellows: Richard Pildes, a professor in NYUs School of Law; Elliot Wolfson, a professor in NYUs Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies; and Jorge Castañeda, a Distinguished Global Professor of Politics, who was elected as a foreign honorary member of AAAS.
The three are among 190 new Fellows and 22 new foreign honorary members elected. Other new fellows include the following: Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; blues guitarist B.B. King; and Academy-Award-winning filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen. Joel Coen is an alumnus of NYUs Tisch School of the Arts.
AAAS will welcome this years fellows at an induction ceremony on Oct. 11 at the academys headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law and co-director of the School of Laws Center on Law and Security at NYUs School of Law. His publications include The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process and When Elections Go Bad: The Law of Democracy and the 2000 Presidential Election, both co-authored volumes.
Wolfson, the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, has published extensively in the area of Jewish mysticism and philosophy in the medieval and modern eras. His books include: Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination; Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death; and Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism.
Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, holds an appointment in NYUs Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. His publications include: Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War; The Mexican Shock; Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara; and Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen. Castañeda is a regular columnist for the Mexican daily Reforma and Newsweek International.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and others, AAAS has elected as fellows and foreign honorary members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Ben Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th.