Fall 2026 Colloquium: Lisa Siraganian

The Problem with Personhood: Should Nonhumans Have Rights in Law and Politics?

Thursday, September 3, 2026 4:30 PM EDT
The event will be livestreamed by GMU-TV

Lisa Siraganian is the J. R. Herbert Boone Chair in Humanities and Professor in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University. Siraganian has written award-winning scholarly monographs that bridge literary criticism, art criticism, and legal and philosophical scholarship. More recently, she was the Editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature, 10th edition, Volume D (1914-1945) (2022).

Her latest book is The Problem of Personhood (2026).

The US Supreme Court decision Citizens United famously extended certain human rights to corporations. If corporations have human rights, why not fetuses, dolphins, lakes, or robots and AI? Each of these claims has been credibly advanced in the years since Citizens United, and all demand urgent attention.