Professor Nomi Claire Lazar, PhD

Nomi Claire Lazar is a Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa where she is also an elected member of the Governing Board. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Yale, and at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, where she served as Associate Dean of Faculty. With a background in legal and political thought, she has written extensively on emergency powers, political ethics, national constitutions and their legitimacy, utopian and apocalyptic politics, time and temporality, and political rhetoric. Lazar holds a PhD in politics from Yale, an MA from University College London, School of Public Policy and a HonBA in philosophy from Toronto. Her books include States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies (Cambridge, 2009/13) and Out of Joint: Power Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time (Yale, 2019). Lazar also has expertise in Singaporean politics, and in criminal law policy, having served on the policy team that developed and implemented Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act. She has written for and been interviewed by Macleans, Channel News Asia, Toronto Star, Singapore Straits Times, and PBS.

Sub-specialties:

Asia:
- Politics of Singapore and ASEAN

Criminal Justice:
- youth crime
- restorative justice
- prisoners' rights
- alternatives to prison
- crime statistics
- diminished responsibility
- death penalty

Higher Education
- Globalization of higher education
- Liberal arts in Asia
- Academic freedom
- Diversity in the classroom

Human Rights
- Rights limitations
- Emergency government
- Conflicts of rights
- International criminal court
- Prisoners' rights / Mandela rules
- Eminent domain and limits on property rights

Law
- Constitutions
- Negotiating constitutions
- Longevity of constitutions
- Symbolism and rhetoric in constitutions
- Constitutional change / constitutional conventions

Politics
- Rhetoric and persuasion in politics
- Political speeches / communication
- Political strategy in elections
- Canadian politics
- Singapore politics
- Politics of Time, Times zones, daylight savings time,
- Politics of calendars and calendar reform
- Apocalyptic thinking and conspiracies
- Utopian politics / rhetoric / movements

Public Safety:
- Emergencies and crises
- Rights in an emergency
- Communication and leadership strategy in an emergency
- State of emergency