Cornell government professors Benedict Anderson, Ph.D. '67, and Peter Katzenstein have been elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Anderson, the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government and Asian Studies, is best known for his 1983 book "Imagined Communities," which broke new ground in the study of nationalism. Anderson is also a leading scholar in the field of Southeast Asian area studies.

Katzenstein, the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies, focuses his research and teaching at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. He is president of the American Political Science Association for 2008-09. Katzenstein, a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, has made important contributions to international relations, political economy, security studies, European and German studies, and Asian and Japanese studies.

Other new members elected April 25 include concert pianist Emanuel Ax, investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, composer Philip Glass and entrepreneur and philanthropist George Soros.

The American Philosophical Society is the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 for the purpose of "promoting useful knowledge." The society supports research, discovery and education through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes and exhibitions. Its membership has included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John James Audubon, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein and Robert Frost.

Other Cornell faculty members who have been elected to the society include M.H. Abrams, the Class of 1916 Professor of English Emeritus; Liberty H. Bailey, dean of Cornell's agriculture college from 1903 to 1913; Hans A. Bethe, professor emeritus of physics; Eric A. Blackall, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German Literature; and Jonathan Culler, the Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature.

Since 1900, more than 260 members have received the Nobel Prize. For more information, see http://www.amphilsoc.org.