Adler and Swanson Selected for “Reckoning” Fellowships
06.01.21 —The Humanities Center at Northeastern University College of Social Sciences and Humanities has selected professors Libby Adler and Kara Swanson as 2021-2022 “Reckoning” Fellows — a multidisciplinary group of Northeastern faculty and PhD candidates who are exploring “reckonings” that involve an intersectional, multidimensional process of truth-telling and accountability around all forms of systemic oppression, from the intimate and familial, to the social and political, to the planetary and cosmic.
Adler’s project, “Governing the Terrain Called Beauty: Cuba as a Case Study of LGBTQ Progress in a Socialist Legal Environment,” explores whether there is an approach to LGBTQ progress that is not based on the liberal legal model that relies on individual rights such as privacy or expression—both of which have proven essential in the US. “If there is an alternative model for LGBTQ progress, might it improve on the American tendency to advance the interests of the most privileged within that population on axes of race and income, while leaving the most marginalized behind?,” Adler wonders. “I’m looking forward to convening with this fascinating, interdisciplinary group as I think through these questions.”
Swanson’s project, “Inventing Citizens: Race, Gender, and Patents,” examines the surprising role of invention and patenting in answering the consequential question, who is an American? “I will be considering how white women and Black Americans have used their participation in technology creation and the patent system to make claims for recognition as full American citizens, using this multidisciplinary community to consider the relationship between past exclusions and contemporary reckonings in the United States,” said Swanson, who will publish a book related to her project.
About Northeastern University School of Law
The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country and is a national leader in legal education reform. Founded with cooperative legal education as the cornerstone of its program, Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences. All students participate in full-time legal placements, and can choose from the more than 1,500 employers worldwide participating in the school’s signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experience to successfully practice law.
For more information, contact d.feldman@northeastern.edu.