Episode 6: Duncan Kennedy on the Emergence of the Critical Legal Studies movement (Part Three)

Duncan Kennedy is the Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, Emeritus at Harvard Law School. He is well known as one of the founders of the Critical Legal Studies movement.

This episode is the final segment of Abbey Marr’s interview of Professor Duncan Kennedy. In this Part, Abbey and Duncan expand upon their  discussion of the role of identity, gender, and hierarchy within CLS and other social movements.

Kennedy begins by talking about his 1985 article, Psycho-Social CLS and, building on that, the discussion turns again to hierarchy, and especially of internal hierarchy within the CLS movement, touching on questions like: What is the role of desire in the mentor-mentee relationship? In homosocial/homoerotic mentor/mentee relationships? What about when women become increasingly involved in the CLS movement, and Catharine MacKinnon puts words to the eroticization of domination? How should mentors view their mentees -- as extensions of themselves? As people free to develop their own works and careers?

Marr and Kennedy  then return to the topic of how CLS ended as a movement and explore the lasting  impact of CLS on legal education and leftist impulses in 21st-century legal academia.

Disclaimer: This episode contains explicit language.

Throughout this episode, you’ll hear Duncan refer to people, events, and scholarly works that impacted or interacted with CLS. You can find links to most of those among the "Referenced Scholars and Works" as well as a rough transcript of the entire episode on our website page: https://systemicjustice.org/2022/08/clt-podcast-episode-6-duncan-kennedy-on-the-emergence-of-the-cls-movement-part-three/.  

Visit the Systemic Justice Project website at systemicjustice.org