Transcending the Boundaries of Law:Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory

Transcending the Boundaries of Law is a ground-breaking collection that will be central to future developments in feminist and related critical theories about law. In its pages three generations of feminist legal theorists engage with what have become key feminist themes, including equality, embodiment, identity, intimacy, and law and politics. Almost two decades ago Routledge published the very first anthology in feminist legal theory, At the Boundaries of Law (M.A. Fineman and N. Thomadsen, eds. 1991), which marked an important conceptual move away from the study of "women in law" prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s. The scholars in At the Boundaries applied feminist methods and theories in examining law and legal institutions, thus expanding upon work in the Law and Society tradition. This new anthology brings together some of the original contributors to that volume with scholars from subsequent generations of critical gender theorists. It provides a "retrospective" on the past twenty-five years of scholarly engagement with issues relating to gender and law, as well as suggesting directions for future inquiry, including the tantalizing suggestion that feminist legal theory should move beyond gender as its primary focus to consider the theoretical, political, and social implications of the universally shared and constant vulnerability inherent in the human condition.

Martha Albertson Fineman is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University and Director and Founder of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project.

Introduction, Martha Albertson Fineman Section One: From Women in the Law to Feminist Legal Theory 1. "Le Féminisme" and Professionalism in Law: Reflections on the History of Women Lawyers, Mary Jane Mossman 2. An Inconsistent Affair: Feminism and the Legal Academy, Margaret Thornton 3. Have Pantsuit, Will Travel, Patricia J. Williams 4. Grappling with Equality: One Feminist Journey, Martha Albertson Fineman Section Two: Engaging Equality 5. What’s So Hard About Sex Equality?: Nature, Culture, and Social Engineering, Linda C. McClain 6. No Male or Female, Mary Anne Case 7. The New Faces of Feminism: Feminism in Action and Organic Feminists in a Post-Feminist Era, Michèle Alexandre Section Three: Engaging Bodies 8. Feminist Legal Theory as Embodied Justice, Isabel Karpin and Roxanne Mykitiuk 9. Privatization and Punishment in the New Age of Reprogenetics, Dorothy E. Roberts 10. A Tale of Two Bodies: The Male Body and Feminist Legal Theory, Michael Thomson Section Four: Engaging Universals and Engaging Identities 11. The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition, Martha Albertson Fineman 12. Resistance in the Afterlife of Identity, Darren Lenard Hutchinson 13. Gender Equality, Citizenship Status, and the Politics of Belonging, Siobhán Mullally Section Five: Engaging Intimacy and Family 14. When and Where They Enter, Robin West 15. New Frontiers in Family Law, Laura T. Kessler 16. Family Law, Feminist Legal Theory, and the Problem of Racial Hierarchy, Twila L. Perry 17. Living Alone: New Demographic Research, Adam P. Romero Section Six: Engaging the State 18. Learning the Lessons: What Feminist Legal Theory Teaches International Human Rights Law and Practice, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin 19. Prosecuting Sexual Violence in the Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, Fiona de Londras 20. Theorizing the More Responsive State: Transcending the (National) Boundaries of Law, Laura Spitz Section Seven: Engaging Politics 21. Gender Scripting and Deliberative Democracy, Holning Lau 22. The Accidental Feminist: A Story of Transformation, Constitutional and Otherwise, Victoria F. Nourse 23. Defending and Developing Critical Feminist Theory as Law Leans Rightward, Martha T. McCluskey