Paul Finkelman

Paul Finkelman (born 15 November 1949 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American historian and legal scholar. He is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy, and Senior Fellow in the Government Law Center at Albany Law School in Albany, NY. Finkelman lives in Slingerlands, New York.

Called an "excellent legal historian", Finkelman has served as an expert witness against Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in Glassroth v. Moore (Al. 2002), the "Ten Commandments" case. He was an expert witness for the plaintiff in Popov v. Hayashi (S.F. Sup. Ct. CA, 2002), to determine who owned Barry Bonds's 73rd home run ball. Professor Finkelman has also been part of amicus curie briefs for cases related to Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and gay marriage in New York State.

Finkelman has published more than 20 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His interests include slavery, race, civil rights, civil liberties, the United States Constitution, Constitutional Law, and baseball. In 2007 Finkelman was listed as one the ten most-cited legal historians in Brian Leiter's Survey of "Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty, 2000-2007".

Finkelman has also written numerous entries for encyclopedias and reference works. He has had over eighty short book reviews in a wide variety of scholarly journals, numerous essays in newspapers (New York Times, USA Today) and other non-scholarly publications.

Finkelman has also appeared in several historical films, including Ken Burns's documentary on Thomas Jefferson (for which he was invited to the Clinton White House), and a documentary about the Barry Bonds' home run ball, Up for Grabs. He has been an analyst on numerous television and radio programs, including NPR, PBS, CNN, and ESPN. He has served on numerous editorial and advisory boards. He has given over one hundred and fifty papers and lectures in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Colombia (SA).

Education

Finkelman earned his undergraduate degree in American Studies from Syracuse University in 1971, and his master's degree and doctorate in American History from the University of Chicago in 1972 and 1976. At Chicago, he was a student of John Hope Franklin and a contributor to the volume, The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin, edited by Eric Anderson & Alfred A. Moss, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1991). Finkelman was a Fellow in Law and Humanities, Harvard Law School, 1982-83.

Career

Finkelman has held many positions teaching law and history including at University of Tulsa College of Law (Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law, 1999–2006), University of Akron School of Law (John F. Seiberling Professor, 1998–99), Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Baker & Hostetler Visiting Professor, 1997–98), Hamline Law School (Distinguished Visiting Professor, Spring 1997), University of Miami (Charlton W. Tebeau Visiting Research Professor, 1996), Chicago-Kent College of Law (Fall, 1995), Virginia Tech (1992–95), Brooklyn Law School, (1990–92), SUNY Binghamton, (1984–1990), University of Texas (1978–84), Texas Law School (Spring, 1982), Washington University, (Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow, 1977–78) and University of California, Irvine (1976–77).

He was the recipient of Joseph L. Andrews Award from American Association of Law Libraries in 1986, and in 1995, he was named Historian of the Year by the Virginia Social Science Association.

While at the State University of New York in Binghamton, Finkelman edited the 18-volume Articles on American Slavery, collecting nearly 400 of the most important articles on slavery in the United States. It was published by Garland Publishing, Inc. in New York and London in 1989.

In April, 2007, Finkelman appeared at Harvard Law School for a retrial of the Dred Scott v. Sanford case. He was an expert witness for Sanford. Other expert witnesses included attorney Kenneth Starr. The court was made up of federal justices; serving as Chief Justice was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Finkelman spent a portion of the fall '08 semester at Osaka University in Japan, where he was a visiting research scholar. and was a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science resident at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan in 2001. Finkelman is the editor of The Political Lincoln: An Encyclopedia (2009), published by CQ Press, and is an advisor to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Selected publications

• A Brief Narrative of the Tryal of John Peter Zenger. Edited with an introduction. Bradywine Press, 1997.
• A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States. With Melvin I. Urofsky. 2 vols. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity. University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
• Baseball and the American Legal Mind. With Spencer Waller and Neil Cohen. Garland, 1995.
• Constitutional Law In Context. With Michael Kent Curtis, J. Wilson Parker and Davison M. Douglas. 2 vols. 2nd ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2006.
• Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
• Documents of American Constitutional and Legal History (2 vols.) Co-edited with Melvin Urofsky. Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. Bedford Books, 1997.
• Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass. Editor-in-Chief. 3 vols. Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Co-edited with Cary Wintz. 2 vols. Routledge, 2005
• Impeachable Offenses: A Documentary History from 1787 to the Present. Co-authored with Emily Van Tassel. Congressional Quarterly Press, 1998.
• Religion and American Law: An Encyclopedia. Editor. Garland, 2000.
• Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson. 2nd ed. M.E. Sharpe, 2001.
• Slavery in the Courtroom. Library of Congress, 1985. Recipient of the 1986 Joseph L. Andrews Award from the American Association of Law Libraries.
• Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown. Co-edited with Peggy A. Russo. Ohio University Press, 2005.
• "Toward a Usable Past: Liberty Under State Constitutions." Co-editor with Stephen Gottlieb. University of Georgia Press, 1991.

External links

• Finkelman's publications and public lectures
• Finkelman's articles in full text