James A. Robinson to present 2025 Ryerson Lecture on April 23

Prof. James A. Robinson, the renowned economist and political scientist who recently became the University of Chicago’s latest Nobel Prize winner, will deliver the 2025 Nora and Edward Ryerson Lecture.

A UChicago tradition since 1972, the Ryerson Lecture features prominent UChicago faculty members who have made “research contributions of lasting significance.” This year’s event, which will begin at 5 p.m. April 23 in the Rubenstein Forum’s Friedman Hall, is free and open to the public; it also will be webcast on UChicago digital channels. RSVP at the event website.

“I am really honored and humbled to present this year’s Ryerson Lecture,” said Robinson, the Reverend Dr. Richard L. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies and University Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy and the Department of Political Science. “When I look at the scholars who have presented in the past, the topics they have discussed, and the light they have thrown on some of the most important social and scientific questions of our times, it reminds me of how exciting it is to teach at the University of Chicago.”

Robinson was awarded the Nobel Prize in October 2024 for his research on global inequality, including how institutions are formed and affect prosperity. The institute director of UChicago’s Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, Robinson teaches and conducts fieldwork around the world—from South America to the Caribbean to Africa—and has co-authored numerous best-selling books, including Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012) and The Narrow Corridor: States, Society and the Fate of Liberty (2019).

Robinson’s Ryerson Lecture, entitled “The Political Impact of Ideas: Evidence from England,” will draw upon his recent work to digitize a corpus of political debates, discussions and works of political philosophy—in order to examine political change in 17th-century England.

For example, Robinson cites the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which he said heralded the rise of parliamentary sovereignty. “Clearly this was a political conflict which led to policy changes and there were interests involved, but what role did ideas about the nature of political legitimacy play in this contest?” he asks. “John Locke’s ‘Two Treatises of Government’ was a key text for those opposing the monarchy. What was the part played by Locke's ideas in making 1688 happen?”

The Ryerson Lectures originated through a bequest from Nora and Edward Ryerson, former chair of UChicago’s Board of Trustees. Other recent lecturers have included philosopher Jonathan Lear, cosmologist Wendy Freedman, political scientist Cathy Cohen, paleontologist Neil Shubin and Nobel-winning economist Richard Thaler.