By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Stanley Hoffmann, a political scientist whose work encompasses international relations, the sociology of war, the culture and politics of France, European history and politics, and American foreign policy, has been named the first Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor.

Hoffmann has taught at Harvard since 1955 and was the founder of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies and cofounder of the Center for European Studies. Since 1980 he has been the C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France.

The new chair was established by Paul A. Buttenwieser '60, MD '64, a Cambridge-based psychiatrist and novelist, who, with his wife Catherine, is also the founder of Family to Family, an organization that works to help homeless families in the Boston area achieve self-sufficiency.

Buttenwieser, whose previously announced $5 million gift to the University will serve in part to fund the new chair, has contributed to Harvard in many other ways as well. He is a John Harvard Fellow, a member of the Committee on University Resources, a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Boston Major Gifts Committee, and chair of the American Repertory Theatre's advisory board.

"Katie and I were honored when President Rudenstine asked us to endow a University professorship," Buttenwieser said. "Today we are again honored that so distinguished a scholar and humanitarian as Stanley Hoffmann has accepted the first appointment to that chair."

In announcing the appointment, President Neil L. Rudenstine said that Hoffmann was "a teacher and scholar of great insight and scope. He has made brilliant contributions to our understanding of Europe in particular, and to international relations more generally, through a passionate engagement with problems in political theory and an equally strong understanding of the realities that shape relations among nations. He has enriched the life of this University for more than four decades. It is fitting in every way that he should become the first professor to hold the new chair established by Paul Buttenwieser, who began his undergraduate career at Harvard just a year after Stanley Hoffmann joined our faculty."

Dean of FAS Jeremy R. Knowles said, "Stanley Hoffmann has been called 'a passionate intellectual.' He is an inspiring teacher in and out of the Core, he was a founding father of the distinguished undergraduate concentration in social studies, and he led the Center for European Studies for decades. His contributions to political science, to the study of France, and to this Faculty since his first appointment in 1955, have been enormous. Stanley combines scholarly distinction with extraordinarily wide learning, and it is a pleasure to welcome his appointment as the Buttenwieser University Professor."

Hoffmann said he was surprised by the appointment, but that he welcomes the new position with enthusiasm.

"I am deeply honored, needless to say, and grateful, needless to say, and delighted because it will make it possible for me to teach in a wider range of faculties. Since I enjoy teaching enormously, being able to teach more broadly is very appealing to me. For example, I can imagine myself offering seminars in the Kennedy School, especially in international relations. I would also like to do more teaching in film and literature, two lifelong interests which I wouldn't mind indulging in my old age."

As a University professorship, the Buttenwieser chair belongs to a special category of endowed positions established in 1935 as Harvard's highest professorial distinction. University professorships are designed to give free rein to scholars "working on the frontiers of knowledge . . . who go beyond the conventional limits of departments and specialties." Sixteen University professorships now exist, of which 12 are currently occupied.

Hoffmann was born in Vienna in 1928, and moved to France with his family the following year. Educated in France and the United States, he has authored, co-authored, and edited dozens of volumes in both French and English, including Contemporary Theory in International Relations, 1960; The State of War, 1965; Decline or Renewal: France Since the 1930s, 1974; Duties Beyond Borders, 1981; and Janus and Minerva, 1986; The European Sisyphus: Essays on Europe, 1964-1994 (The New Europe: Interdisciplinary Perspectives), 1996; and The Ethics and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention, 1996 (with Robert C. Johansen and James P. Sterba).

He has also been an incisive and influential commentator on contemporary politics, writing regularly for such periodicals as Daedalus, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times.

An inspiring lecturer and devoted mentor, Hoffmann is renowned for his teaching, both on the graduate and undergraduate levels. His Core course, Ethics and International Relations, has been consistently popular. Hoffmann is now working on a book that has grown out of that course.