bepress Legal Repository

Righting the Relationship Between Race and Religion in Law

Nomi M. Stolzenberg, USC Law School

Article comments

Forthcoming in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2011).

Abstract

This review discusses the interrelationship of race and religion in law, the subject of Eve Darian-Smith's new book, which seeks to rectify the neglect of religion in the study of race and law and the parallel neglect of race in studies of law and religion. Concurring with the book’s basic propositions, that the segregation of race and religion into separate fields of legal studies needs to be overcome and the religious origins of fundamental liberal legal ideas need to be recognized, I tease out different ways in which race and religion can be “linked” and religion can “play a role” in the development of modern law that are not fully parsed out in Darian-Smith's analysis. Applauding her attempt to integrate recent challenges to the long regnant "secularization thesis" into the study of race and law, I point out some unresolved ambiguities in those challenges and their implications for law.

Subject Area

Human Rights Law, Law and Society, Legal History, Public Law and Legal Theory, Religion

Recommended Citation

Nomi M. Stolzenberg, "Righting the Relationship Between Race and Religion in Law" (June 2011). University of Southern California. University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series. Working Paper 77.
http://law.bepress.com/usclwps/lss/art77

No readers' reactions have been posted for this article. To submit one, copy the URL for this article (http://law.bepress.com/usclwps/lss/art77) and click here.