Senior Lecturer Dr. Jens Meierhenrich is the newest faculty member to join the LSE International Relations Department, after spending ten years as lecturer and later as an assistant professor of Government at Harvard University in Massachusetts. (He received is doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.) Although he has only spent a brief amount of time as a Senior Lecturer at LSE, he is already pleased to see that LSE’s IR students show academic innovation and genuine dedication to the field.
While growing up in Germany, Dr. Meierhenrich experienced firsthand the social deformations of a post-genocidal society. It was thus not surprising to hold both a personal and academic interest for the study of genocide and international crimes, which are Dr. Meierhenrich’s main areas of academic research.
Today, the professor is working at full speed, as he is preparing several books to be published within the next two years. After his first, award-winning book, The Legacies of Law, published in 2008, Lawfare is Dr. Meierhenrich’s most recently completed project. A comparative historical account of the Gacaca jurisdictions created in Rwanda, the book is slated to be published in late 2011, along with a Reader on genocide and a Very Short Introduction to the same topic. Dr. Meierhenrich is currently preparing, for Princeton University Press, a genocide trilogy, a collection of three advanced books on genocide, expected to be in print in 2012 and 2013.
Along with his academic work, Dr. Meierhenrich has many interests beyond genocide and international law. When he’s not teaching or writing, he enjoys reading, among other things The New Yorker and Vanity Fair magazine. He also loves novels (e.g., Harukami, Franzen) and listening to alternative music, especially to artists such The National, Tindersticks, The XX, and, a perennial favorite, The Smiths. He enjoys going to concerts and follows international cinema but regrets not knowing how to play a musical instrument. After spending a year in Japan, he ranks Tokyo as his favorite international city.
For the Lent term, Dr. Meierhenrich is offering a PhD workshop that focuses on international law and international institutions (IR507). He encourages participation of both Masters and PhD students, and hopes that this workshop will be one of many initiatives that will bring IR postgraduate students of both levels together. It is definitely a great pleasure to have him here at LSE, as the young professor’s energy and passion for his work will be surely passed on to the students of the International Relations Department.
