Wendy Brown, Professor of Political Science and UPS Foundation Chair at the School of Social Science, at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA, will be awarded Södertörn University’s honorary doctorate for 2025.
Every year, Södertörn University awards an honorary doctorate to someone who has made significant contributions to society and culture, promoted the university’s education or research, or inspired or contributed to its development in other ways. Södertörn University’s Faculty Board has decided to award the honorary doctorate for 2025 to the American political theorist Wendy Brown. She holds the UPS Foundation Chair at the Institute for Advanced Study and is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages and she has received numerous awards for her contributions to political theory and critical scholarship.
“I am particularly pleased to receive this honour from Södertörn University, with its commitments to enriching public life through its research and to developing citizens in its classrooms,” says Professor Brown.
Across her research, Brown examines the hidden dimensions of power that shape contemporary Western politics, focusing on the identities, subjectivities, and political formations that result. Brown seeks to illuminate forces unique to our time and the difficulties they create for democratic thought and practice, from neoliberal governance and the de-democratisation of political culture to the nihilistic impoverishment of truth and values. She is currently writing a book provisionally entitled Reparative Democracy: A Vision for the Twenty-First Century.
“Wendy Brown is a researcher who truly works in the spirit of Södertörn University,” says Stina Bengtsson, chair of the Faculty Board. “Her critical and socially relevant research sheds light on the critical issues of our time, and has clear links to the university’s core concepts of multidisciplinarity, multiculturality and liberal education.”
Professor Brown, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has held several visiting professorships and fellowships, including at Cornell, Columbia, Duke, the European Graduate School, the University of Lucerne, the University of London (Birkbeck), the London School of Economics and the University of Witwatersrand.

The citation for 2025’s honorary doctorate reads:
“Professor Wendy Brown will receive Södertörn University’s honorary doctorate for her significant work of social and contemporary relevance, as well as for her commitment to issues that permeate the university’s activities and its core concepts of multidisciplinarity, multiculturality and liberal education. In a time when fundamental democratic values are under threat, Professor Brown’s longstanding development of critical theory provides scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences with an invaluable resource for understanding current events and formulating alternatives.”