Elaine Scarry is a professor of English and American Literature and Language. She is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, and was formerly Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research includes the Language of Physical Pain, the Structure of Verbal and Material Making in Art, Science, and the Law, and the Theory of Representation. Her most recent book, “Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom”, examines the political consequences of nuclear weapons inevitably being controlled by a small group, many of whom are not elected democratically, and the even fewer who have the authority to launch.

Dr. Scarry’s talk is titled: Democracy and Nuclear Weapons Cannot Co-Exist. She will begin at 7 PM at Cambridge’s Central Square Library.