The Alchemy of Race and Rights
{{Short description|Memoir by Patricia J. Williams}}
{{Infobox book
| italic title =
| name = The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor
| image = The Alchemy of Race and Rights.jpg| image_size =
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| caption =
| author = Patricia J. Williams
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| country = United States
| language = English
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| subject = Law, U.S. history, race
| genre = Critical legal studies, critical race studies, memoir
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| publisher = Harvard University Press
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| pub_date = 1991
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| pages = 272
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| isbn = 9780674014718
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| website = http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674014718
}}
The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor is a memoir and critical legal studies text by Columbia University law professor Patricia J. Williams. Williams won a MacArthur Fellowship in part in recognition of the book's achievements.
Publication
Williams published The Alchemy of Race and Rights with Harvard University Press in 1991. A paperback edition was published in March 1992.{{cite web|title=The Alchemy of Race and Rights — Patricia J. Williams {{!}} Harvard University Press|url=http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674014718|website=Harvard University Press|publisher=Harvard University|access-date=30 May 2017|language=en}}
Subject matter
Writing in 1998, The New York Times said that in The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Williams "used autobiography to explore the relationship among law, race, perceptions of rights and liberation."{{cite news|last1=Kalman|first1=Laura|title=Race Matters|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/10/books/race-matters.html|access-date=9 August 2016|work=The New York Times|date=10 May 1998}} The Washington Post described the book as "targeting the legal mind, particularly its intersections with matters of race and gender."{{cite news|last1=Streitfeld|first1=David|title=FOCUS|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/08/16/focus/91a32ef0-e652-42c9-a5a5-7216ed9d9ef2/|access-date=9 August 2016|work=Washington Post|date=August 16, 1991}}
Reception
=Reviews=
Writing in 2015, the Los Angeles Review of Books invoked The Alchemy of Race and Rights as a "seminal work" on "the logic of rights...state domination...[and] legal protection."{{cite news|last1=Bruce-Jones|first1=Eddie|title=Black Lives and the State of Distraction - Los Angeles Review of Books|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/black-lives-and-the-state-of-distraction/|access-date=9 August 2016|work=Los Angeles Review of Books|date=September 21, 2015}} The New York Times said that with the book, "Williams changed the voice of legal scholarship." Writing for the Boston Review in 1991, Wendy Brown said, "As a meditation on the searing injuries of racism, on hidden histories in the entrails of legal cases, or on the bankrupt character of contemporary American political life, the effect of Williams's alchemy is powerful beyond measure."{{cite journal|last1=Brown|first1=Wendy|title=The Power of Rights|journal=Boston Review|date=1993|issue=June–August|url=http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR18.3/brown.html}}
=Awards=
In 1992, Williams won the Bruce K. Gould Book Award for "outstanding publication related to the law, legal profession or legal system" for The Alchemy of Race and Rights.{{cite web|title=Touro Law - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor - Bruce K. Gould Book Award 2013|url=http://www.tourolaw.edu/alumni/2013-bruce-k-gould-book-award|website=www.tourolaw.edu|access-date=9 August 2016|date=2013}} When Williams won the MacArthur "genius grant" in 2000, the Foundation cited "[h]er highly regarded first book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: A Diary of a Law Professor (1991)...an autobiographical work that illuminates some of America’s most complex problems."{{cite web|title=Patricia J. Williams — MacArthur Foundation|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/652/|website=www.macfound.org|publisher=MacArthur Foundation|access-date=9 August 2016|date=July 1, 2000}}
External links
- [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674014718 The Alchemy of Race and Rights] at Harvard University Press.
- [https://www.thenation.com/admin-taxonomy/diary-of-a-mad-law-professor/ Diary of a Mad Law Professor] at The Nation
References
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alchemy Of Race And Rights}}
Category:Critical legal studies
Category:1991 non-fiction books