Vulnerability theory
| Martha Albertson Fineman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1943 (age 73–74) |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Critical legal theory, feminist legal theory |
| Institutions |
Emory University School of Law (2004–) Cornell Law School (1999–2004) Columbia Law School (1990–1999) University of Wisconsin Law School (1976–1990) |
|
Main interests
|
Jurisprudence, political philosophy, family law |
|
Notable ideas
|
Vulnerability theory |
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Influenced
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Martha Albertson Fineman (born 1943) is an American jurist, legal theorist and political philosopher. She is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. Fineman was previously the first holder of the Dorothea S. Clarke Professorship of Feminist Jurisprudence at Cornell Law School and held the Maurice T. Moore Professorship at Columbia Law School.
Fineman is one of the most influential figures in feminist legal theory and critical legal theory and directs the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, which she founded in 1984. Much of her early scholarship focuses on the legal regulation of family and intimacy, and she has been called "the preeminent feminist family theorist of our time." She has since broadened her scope to focus on the legal implications of universal dependency, vulnerability and justice. Her recent work formulates a theory of vulnerability, in order to argue for a more responsive state and a more egalitarian society. She is a prominent progressive liberal thinker; she has been an affiliated scholar of John Podesta's Center for American Progress and has been described as a "close friend of the Obama administration."
Fineman has a B.A. from Temple University (1971) and a J.D. from the University of Chicago (1975). She clerked for the Hon. Luther Merritt Swygert of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and was on faculty at the University of Wisconsin Law School from 1976 to 1990. She was appointed as the Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in 1990, and as the first Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence at Cornell Law School in 1999. The Clarke professorship is the first endowed chair in feminist jurisprudence at a law school in the United States. Since 2004, she has been Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, which is that institution’s highest honor bestowed on a faculty member, "reserved for world-class scholars who are not only proven leaders of their own fields of specialty but also ambitious bridge-builders across specialty disciplines." She is the third legal scholar after Harold J. Berman and Michael J. Perry to be appointed to such a chair.
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