FEMINISM AND LEGAL THEORY PROJECT ARCHIVE

FLT Archive

Background

The FLT archive contains a range of materials relating to over 80 workshops and conferences run under the auspices of the FLT Project for over 25 years, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1984—1990), Columbia University (1990—1999), Cornell University (1999—2003), and Emory University (2004—). FLT is of course Martha Fineman’s project, both in its inception and continuity, and the changes in venues across the years reflect Martha’s own career trajectory. Despite Professor Fineman’s centrality to the project, she has deliberately taken on the role of facilitator, rather than presenter, seeking to bring together other feminists to validate established expertise and also encourage newly emerging scholars from around the world.

The archive contains published FLT anthologies, materials from all FLT workshops and conferences, as well as CD/DVD recordings of one-off presentations by leading scholars. The workshop and conference materials include initial papers written pre-presentation (in workbooks), actual (sometimes revised) presented papers at conferences (on CD/DVD), and, uniquely, Q & A sessions following the presentations (again, on CD/DVD). These are unedited, providing a unique insight into each event.

The materials reflect trends in feminist socio-legal theory across the past 25+ years. Several conferences have had the sub-heading of "Uncomfortable Conversations," tackling head-on tensions between competing theoretical positions. Enduring themes include (competing) feminist theories; concepts of the family, parenthood, and childhood; gendered inequality and its intersection with other disadvantaged minority identities (race, class, sexual identity, disability, and age); the material well-being of women and children; economic theory; vulnerability, dependency, and resilience; women’s subordination in law; and critical perspectives in law.

Some discourse has shifted quite dramatically, e.g. from focus on the public/private divide to viewing feminism through the lens of post-colonialism and global frameworks. Themes about parents and children have, in particular, taken on different perspectives across the quarter century. In the early 1990s interest was focused on representations of motherhood; in the mid-1990s this had shifted towards the parent-child dyad beyond gendered normativity (alongside Martha’s own work, e.g. The Neutered Mother); and by the later 1990s one of the "Uncomfortable Conversations" was on the tensions which can arise between the legal rights of mothers and their children. Between 2000 and 2010, the focus had widened to include masculinities, father’s rights, and the socio-legal implications of genetic manipulation, reproductive technologies, and the "pregnant man."

The FLT archive is a unique historical record and a wonderful resource for feminist research with so much to offer on the development of feminist socio-legal theory across the last quarter of a century.