Race, Human Bodies and the Spirit of the Law: A Conversation

Patricia J. Williams, one of the most provocative intellectuals in American law, holds a joint appointment in the School of Law and the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Northeastern University. From 1997 until 2019, Williams wrote the popular “Diary of a Mad Law Professor” column for the Nation. She is a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient and the author of six books. The Alchemy of Race and Rights was named one of the 25 best books of 1991 by the Voice Literary Supplement, one of the “feminist classics of the last 20 years” that “literally changed women’s lives” by Ms. magazine, and one of the 10 best nonfiction books of the decade by Amazon.com. Williams holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Ms., the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Washington Post. Williams has appeared in several documentary films, including That Rush!, which was featured in an installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. After 30 years at Columbia Law School in New York City, Williams currently lives in Boston. 

Linda Greenhouse is a senior research scholar in law at Yale Law School, where she taught from 2009 to 2023. For the previous thirty years, she was the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for her coverage of the Court. Her commentary on the Court appears frequently in the Times’ opinion pages, as well as in the New York Review of Books and other publications. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard) and earned a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School. In her extracurricular life, she has served on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Harvard Board of Overseers and the National Senate of Phi Beta Kappa. She served from 2017 to 2023 as president of the American Philosophical Society, the country’s oldest learned society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, where she served on the Council for more than 20 years, and an honorary member of the American Law Institute. She is the author of six books, including Becoming Justice Blackmun, a biography of the Supreme Court Justice; The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction (now in an updated 3rd edition); and a memoir, Just a Journalist. Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court was published by Random House in 2021. Among her 13 honorary degrees is one from Northeastern University Law School. She and her husband, Eugene Fidell, live in Stockbridge, MA, and Pasadena, CA. Their daughter, Hannah Fidell, is a film director and writer in Los Angeles.

Food and drinks will be available in person. A livestream link will be sent out closer to the event date.

The event is cosponsored by the CSSH Dean’s Office and Frugal Bookstore.