March 8, 2007: UAA Polaris lecture series welcomes Daniel Lowenstein

Expert talks about Shakespeare and Sex, Chastity, Marriage, Justice, Mercy, Corruption UAA continues its highly regarded Polaris lecture series when it hosts Daniel Lowenstein for an evening event entitled "Sex, Chastity, Marriage, Justice, Mercy, Corruption:  Is Measure for Measure a Comedy?"  This free lecture will be held on Thursday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m. in Rasmuson Hall, room 101.

Lowenstein, Professor of Law at UCLA, will focus on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, a comedy that explores the tension between justice and mercy.  Though the play is best understood as a comedy, scholars and directors now lean toward dark interpretations of the play, in which the tensions surrounding both the administration of law and sexuality go unresolved.  However, Measure for Measure ends with a proper balance between justice and mercy and a happy marriage between the Duke and Isabella.

Daniel H. Lowenstein has been at UCLA since 1979, where he teaches political theory and literature along with various legal subjects. Born in New York City, he received his A.B. from Yale and his law degree from Harvard. An expert on election law with a special interest in reapportionment and the constitutionality of term limits, he served as an attorney in state government. In the 1970s he drafted the law establishing the California Fair Political Practices Commission, of which he was the first chairman. Several decades later, as a professor, he wrote Election Law, published in 1995. A member of the board of the award-winning theatre troupe Interact, he is an expert on Shakespeare as well as on bribery, campaign finance, and other political and constitutional questions.

The Polaris lectures, named for the North Star on Alaska's flag, address a wide range of subjects in the liberal arts.  Organized by the UAA Democracy Forum with assistance from the University Honors Forty-Ninth State Fellows Program, the Office of Community Partnerships, the Polaris Society, the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Polaris lecture series began in the 1980s to commemorate the bicentenary of the American Constitution.