Jill Norgren
Professor emerita, biographer, book reviewer, and author most recently of Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers: Lives in the Law, Forgotten Stories of America’s First Women Lawyers (NYU Press, 2018)
I taught government, law and society, and women’s studies for nearly thirty years at John Jay College and the University Graduate Center, The City University of New York. My research has focused on various aspects of cultural pluralism and law. In two early books, Partial Justice (with P.T. Shattuck), and The Cherokee Cases, I took up questions of federal Indian law. In our textbook, Cultural Pluralism and Law (now in the 3rd ed.), anthropologist Serena Nanda and I explore the continual negotiation that has occurred between culturally different groups and American society through the mechanism of law. In my four most recent books, Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers: Lives in the Law, Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would be President; Belva Lockwood: Equal Rights Pioneer (for young adults); and Rebels at the Bar I have turned to biography, recovering the lives and careers of America’s first (nineteenth century) women lawyers. My newest book on women lawyers is Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers.
I am also a co-founder of, and researcher/writer for, the website www.herhatwasinthering.org. This site focuses upon women in the United States who ran for political office before 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Through mini-biographies and short historical essays, this unique site challenges the longstanding belief that women of that era did not involve themselves in electoral politics. Currently, the names and short biographies of more than 5,000 women appear on our website.
As a book reviewer for the online cultural site, SeniorWomen.com, I specialize in essays on memoir, biography, and U.S. politics. I have reviewed Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s memoir My Beloved World; David Nasaw’s The Patriarch; Carla Peterson’s Black Gotham; and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. http://www.seniorwomen.com/news/index.php/author/jill-norgren/
Complementing my delight at being a writer is my longtime interest in public lecturing. Who could teach for many years and not want to continue presenting ideas and stories to an audience, and receiving back questions and responses? Currently, I speak on the writing of biography and the biographical subjects of my books Belva Lockwood, Rebels at the Bar, and Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers. (See My Lecture Topics page)
I taught government, law and society, and women’s studies for nearly thirty years at John Jay College and the University Graduate Center, The City University of New York. My research has focused on various aspects of cultural pluralism and law. In two early books, Partial Justice (with P.T. Shattuck), and The Cherokee Cases, I took up questions of federal Indian law. In our textbook, Cultural Pluralism and Law (now in the 3rd ed.), anthropologist Serena Nanda and I explore the continual negotiation that has occurred between culturally different groups and American society through the mechanism of law. In my four most recent books, Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers: Lives in the Law, Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would be President; Belva Lockwood: Equal Rights Pioneer (for young adults); and Rebels at the Bar I have turned to biography, recovering the lives and careers of America’s first (nineteenth century) women lawyers. My newest book on women lawyers is Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers.
I am also a co-founder of, and researcher/writer for, the website www.herhatwasinthering.org. This site focuses upon women in the United States who ran for political office before 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Through mini-biographies and short historical essays, this unique site challenges the longstanding belief that women of that era did not involve themselves in electoral politics. Currently, the names and short biographies of more than 5,000 women appear on our website.
As a book reviewer for the online cultural site, SeniorWomen.com, I specialize in essays on memoir, biography, and U.S. politics. I have reviewed Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s memoir My Beloved World; David Nasaw’s The Patriarch; Carla Peterson’s Black Gotham; and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. http://www.seniorwomen.com/news/index.php/author/jill-norgren/
Complementing my delight at being a writer is my longtime interest in public lecturing. Who could teach for many years and not want to continue presenting ideas and stories to an audience, and receiving back questions and responses? Currently, I speak on the writing of biography and the biographical subjects of my books Belva Lockwood, Rebels at the Bar, and Stories from Trailblazing Women Lawyers. (See My Lecture Topics page)