Rebecca R. French
Professor, Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar,
and Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
B.A., University of Michigan
J.D., University of Washington Law School
LL.M., Yale University
Ph.D., Yale University
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
529 O'Brian
Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
Phone:(716) 645-2159
Faculty Assistant:
Anita Mazurek, 511 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2071
Linda Kelly, 410 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2101
Biography:
Rebecca Redwood French is Professor, Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar, and Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. She joined the faculty in 2001 after serving as Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado from 1992-2001.
French received her B.A. at the University of Michigan (1971), J.D. from University of Washington (1974), and her L.L.M. (1988) and Ph.D. (1990) in legal anthropology at Yale University.
Her work is situated at the intersections of law, anthropology, legal theory, religious studies and Buddhist legal systems. Her four years of field research in Tibet and India resulted in the first study of the Dalai Lama's pre-1960 legal system. She has worked with Tibetans and Indonesians on immigration and cultural issues and has delivered public lectures for Amnesty International, the Tibetan Conference, the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Tibet House, and many others.
Areas of Interest: Anthropology of Law, Comparative Law, Law and Religion, Property, Law and Social Science
Selected Publications:
Books
The Golden Yoke: the Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet (Cornell University Press, 1995)
Articles
The Dalai Lama Speaks on Law (Commentary: Law, Buddhism, and Social Change: A Conversation with the 14th Dalai Lama, September 20-21, 2006) Buffalo Law Review vol. 55: 647-674 (2007) [SSRN]
Introduction (Commentary: Law Buddhism and Social Change: A Conversation with the 14th Dalai Lama, September 20-21, 2006) Buffalo Law Review vol. 55: 639-645 (2007)
The Case of the Missing Discipline: Finding Buddhist Legal Studies, Buffalo Law Review vol. 52: 679- 699 (2004)
Shopping for Religion: The Change in Everyday Religion and Its Importance to the Law, Buffalo Law Review vol. 51: 127-199 (2003)
A Conversation with Tibetans? Reconsidering the Relationship Between Religious Beliefs and Secular Legal Discourse, Law and Social Inquiry vol. 26: 95-112 (2001) (Special Issue on Religion and Identity)
Time in the Law, University of Colorado Law Review vol. 72: 663-748 (2001)
From Yoder to Yoda: Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern Models of Religion in U.S. Constitutional Law, Arizona Law Review vol. 41: 49-92 (1999)
Lamas, Oracles, Channels, and the Law: Reconsidering Religion and Social Theory, Yale Journal of Law & Humanities vol. 10: 505-536 (1998)
Of Narrative in Law and Anthropology, Law & Society Review vol. 30(2): 417-436 (1996) (reviewing Narrative, Violence, and the Law: the Essays of Robert Cover (M.Minow et al., editors) (1992); Narrative, Violence, and Law (Robin West)(1993); and Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin Stories (Lila Abu-Lughod) (1992))
The Cosmology of Law in Buddhist Tibet, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies vol. 18(1): 97-116 (1994)
Leopold J. Pospisil and the Anthropology of Law, Polar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review vol. 16(2): 1-8 (1993)
Chapters
Interdependence and Victim Compensation: Views from Buddhist Tibet and Post-9/11 United States, Faith and Law: How Religious Traditions from Calvinism to Islam View American Law (R.F. Cochran, editor) (New York University Press, 2008)
Law and Religion: Law and Religion in Buddhism, Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan Reference USA, 2nd edition, 2005) (5347-5351)
Law and Buddhism, Encyclopedia of Buddhism (R. Buswell, Jr., editor) (Macmillan Reference USA, 2003) (459-461)
Tibetan Law, Legal Systems of the World: a Political, Social and Historical Encyclopedia Volumes 1-4 (H.M. Kritzer, editor) (ABC-CLIO, 2002) (1620-1633)
Buddhist Secular Law: Doctrines in Context, The Life of Buddhism (F.E. Reynolds & J.A. Carbine, editors) (University of California Press, 2000)
