Among the faculty who will be heading to Cambridge next fall are...

Economic historian Niall Ferguson will start teaching at Harvard Business School (HBS) in spring 2005 and will teach in the history department at FAS the year after.

Ferguson has argued in defense of empires, particularly America’s “empire,” comparing what he sees as modern U.S. imperialism with the earlier British Empire.

Courses Ferguson plans to teach at Harvard include “Business, Government and the International Economy” at HBS and a history department course on World War II.

DOUGLAS LAVIN, PHILOSOPHY

Douglas Lavin studies ethics and the philosophy of action.

“I’m interested in what we can determine about what it is for an action to be good or bad by thinking about what action is,” Lavin wrote in an e-mail.

Lavin’s topic is not a new issue in philosophy, and Lavin wrote that he builds on previous research.

“Approaching questions about the goodness and badness of action through reflection on the nature of action is not, or course, new. And I use the history of ethics as a guide, in particular, Rousseau and Kant,” Lavin wrote.

Lavin will be teaching classes on the philosophy of law and the philosophy of action.

KIMBERLY THEIDON, ANTHROPOLOGY

Kimberly Theidon is a medical anthropologist who studies the aftermath of war in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador.

Theidon’s research began in Peru, where she looked at postwar processes. She continues to examine how individuals contribute to the peacemaking process on both the domestic and the international level.

“My question started off being so simplistic that one has to laugh after the fact...what are people going to do to live together again [after conflict], since they’re all Peruvians...what forms of reconciliation happen at the local level,” she said.

Theidon said that she has been especially impressed by Harvard students’ political awareness, and she said she aims to combine such political awareness with anthropological work.

“There must be a role for informed social science...in policy debates,” she said.