Patricia J. Williams

"The Humanities as Power: Law, Poetry, Jazz and Civic Engagement"

Patricia J. Williams is James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University. A graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School, she has served on faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, Harvard University's Women's Studies Program, and the City University of New York Law School at Queen's College. She is the recipient of the Alumnae Achievement Award from Wellesley, the Graduate Society Medal from Harvard, and the MacArthur foundation “genius” grant.

Williams reflected on her use of interdisciplinarity as a form of advocacy. From her collaborations with poet and jazz saxophonist, Oliver Lake, to her deployment of literary and journalistic techniques in her political writing, she explored the art of 'making a case' with the humanities.