Isabel S Marcus
Professor and Director of International and Graduate Programs
B.A., Barnard College, 1961
M.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1965
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1974
J.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1975
University at Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
527 O'Brian
Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
Phone:(716) 645-2108
Faculty Assistant:
Linda Kelly, 410 O'Brian Hall, Phone: (716) 645-2101
Biography:
Isabel Marcus is a professor of law and Director of International and Graduate Programs at the University at Buffalo Law School. She is one of the founders of the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender at the University. She served as chair of the Department of Women's Studies at the College of Arts and Sciences from 1997 - 2002. She is on the board of directors of the Network of East-West Women, an international non-governmental organization. She received her J.D., M.A. (African Studies) and Ph.D. (Political Science) from the University of California, Berkeley.
Her longstanding research interests have been in the area of family law, domestic violence, and international women's human rights. Her current research project is a comparative analysis of the implementation of law regarding domestic violence in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
She has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar (Romania 1997, Macedonia 2003-2004), a Fellow of the Bunting Institute, a participant in the Fulbright Senior Scholar Roster and an International Scholar for the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) Higher Education Support Program in Eastern Europe. She has taught extensively in universities in Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovakia and Georgia) and Asia (People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and Thailand).
She is currently teaching family law, comparative family, women's human rights, and selected topics in women's rights.
Selected Publications:
Books
Dark Numbers: Domestic Violence, Law and Public Policy in Hungary and Poland, Romania and Russia (forthcoming)
Dollars for Reform (Lexington Books, 1981)
Articles
Women's Rights are Human Rights: A Call for Educational Reform in Law Faculties in Post-Socialist States (forthcoming)
Looking Toward the Future: Feminism and Reproductive Technologies (1987 James McCormick Mitchell Lecture) (with Rhonda Copelon, Ruth Hubbard, Barbara Katz Rothman, and Barbara Omolade) Buffalo Law Review vol. 37: 203-255 (1989)
Locked In and Locked Out: Divorce Law Reform and Women's Legal Identity, Buffalo Law Review vol. 37: 375-483 (1989)
Reflections on the Significance of the Sex/Gender System: Divorce Law Reform in New York, University of Miami Law Review vol. 42: 55-73 (1987)
Chapters
Wife Beating in Ideology and Practice in Hungary, Poland, and Romania, Gender and Everyday LIfe Under State Socialism in East and Central Europe (J.Massimo & S. Penn, editors) (forthcoming)
Reframing Domestic Violence as Terrorism in the Home, The Private and Public Nature of Violence (M. Fineman & R. Mikitiyuk, editors) (Routledge, 1994)
