Faculty Information

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  • Biography

    B.A., University of Virginia
    J.D., Harvard Law School

    Prof. Farley specializes in Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure and Legal Theory. Prof. Farley was a tenured member of the Boston College Law School faculty, where he taught for sixteen years prior to joining his wife, Associate Prof. Maria Grahn-Farley, on the Albany Law School faculty.  Prior to entering academia, Prof. Farley served as an Assistant United States Attorney with the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.  Prior to his time as a federal prosecutor, Prof. Farley practiced law as a Corporate/Securities Associate with Shearman & Sterling in New York City.

    In 2006-2007 Farley was honored as the 11th holder of the Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights at CUNY School of Law. In 2005, the Boston College Black Law Students Association honored him as the first recipient of The Anthony P. Farley Excellence in Teaching Award, an annual teaching award bearing his name. In 2003, he was the recipient of a residential fellowship with the Humanities Research Institute of the University of California.

    Farley's work in legal theory and constitutional law has appeared in chapter form in After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina (Troutt ed., The New Press: 2006); Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies & the Law (Sarat & Simon eds., Duke University Press: 2003); Crossroads, Directions & a New Critical Race Theory (Valdes et. al. eds., Temple University Press: 2002); Black Men on Race, Gender & Sexuality (Carbado ed., NYU Press: 1999); and Urgent Times: Policing and Rights in Inner-City Communities (Meares & Kahan eds., Beacon: 1999). His work has also appeared in numerous academic journals, including the Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, the NYU Review of Law & Social Change, the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, the Columbia Journal of Race and Law, the Cardozo Law Review, Law & Literature, and the Michigan Journal of Race & Law.

    Public Interest:

    Farley has conducted the reading group - Changing Lives Through Literature - composed of people convicted in the Dorchester District Court. The ten-week course culminates with an in-court graduation ceremony and a reception for participants, friends, relatives, and alumni. Participants have included judges, probation officers and other court personnel, alumni, and even prosecutors. The syllabus includes authors from Frederick Douglass to Primo Levi to Dorothy Day. His efforts have been profiled in David Holmstrom, Staying Out of Jail with Books' Help: Massachusetts Lowers Recidivism by Helping Repeat Offenders Discover the Power of Literature, The Christian Science Monitor, May 30, 1995, at 13.

    Farley is a member of the Society of American Law Teachers and previously served as a member of its Board of Governors. He is a member of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and a previously served as a member of its Board of Directors. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Public Representation. He is also a member of the American Philosophical Association.

    Visits and Appointments:

    In addition to holding the Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights at CUNY School of Law in 2006-2007, Farley has been Visiting Professor at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis in Berkeley, and the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.

    Teaching Interests:

    Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, International Child Rights, and Postcolonial Theory.

  • Forthcoming Publications

    When the Stars Begin to Fall: Introduction to Symposium on Post-Racism, Post-Marxism, and Other Fables of the Dispossession, Columbia Journal of Race and Law __ (forthcoming)

    Critical Race Theory and Marxism: Temporal Power, Part 1
    Columbia Journal of Race and Law

    Keynote Address:Discussion and National Progress, A Letter From My Father Symposium: Radical Nemesis: Re-envisioning Ivan Illich's Theories on Social Institutions, 34 Western New England Law Review

  • Publications

    The Bitter Tears of Jesse Owens, 22 Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 231 (2012)

    Introduction to Taking Oz Seriously, A Symposium on Law & Literature, 20 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 1 (2010)

    Conferring with the Flowers: History and Class Consciousness in L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz, A General Theory of Magic and Law, 20 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 67 (2010)

    Shattered (Symposium: Defining Race)72 Albany Law Review 1053 (2009)

    The Third Annual Jerome M. Culp Memorial Lecture: The Zombie Jamboree, Symposium: 12th Annual LatCrit Conference Critical Localities: Epistemic Communities, Rooted Cosmopolitans, New Hegemonies, and Knowledge Processes,(no. 1) Florida International University Law Review 175 (Fall 2008)

    The Colorline as Capitalist Accumulation, 56 Buffalo Law Review 953 (2008)

    Seasons in the Sun: Reflections on Race and the Race for the Democratic Party Presidential Nomination (Keynote Address at the 10th Annual MLK, Jr. Reflection and Commemoration),1 (no.2) DePaul Journal for Social Justice 323 (2008)

    Johnnie Cochran's Panther: An Essay on Time and Law, 33 Thurgood Marshall Law Review 51 (2007)

    Law as Trauma & Repetition, 31 New York University Review of Law & Social Change 613 (2007)

    The Station in AFTER THE STORM: BLACK INTELLECTUALS EXPLORE THE MEANING OF HURRICANE KATRINA, pp. 147-159 (David Dante Trout ed.) (New Press, 2006)

    McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 2779 (1987) in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES (Paul Finkelman ed.) (co-authored with Geiza Vargas-Vargas) (Routledge Press, 2006)

    Accumulation,11 Michigan Journal of Race & Law 51 (2005)

    Perfecting Slavery, 36 (no.1) Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 221 (Fall 2004)

    The Apogee of the Commodity (Symposium: Race as Proxy in Law and Society: Emerging Issues in Race and the Law), 53 (no.3) DePaul Law Review 1229 (Spring 2004)

    The Dream of Interpretation (Symposium: Beyond Right and Reason: Pierre Schlag, the Critique of Normativity, and the Enchantment of Reason) 57 (no.3) University of Miami Law Review 685 (April 2003)

    Behind the Wall of Sleep, 15 Law & Literature 421 (2003)

    Cassiopeia (Symposium: To Do Feminist Legal Theory), 9 Cardozo Women's Law Journal 423 (2003)

    Amusing Monsters (Symposium: Voters and Voices: Reevaluation in the Aftermath of the 2000 Presidential Election), 23 (no.4) Cardozo Law Review 1493 (March 2002)

    The Poetics of Colorlined Space in CROSSROADS, DIRECTIONS AND A NEW CRITICAL RACE THEORY, pp.97-158 (Francisco Valdes et al eds.) (Temple University Press, 2002)

    No Exit? 9 Boston College School Magazine 4 (Fall 2000) Reprinted in 2001 SALT Equalizer, Issue 3 (October 2001)

    Lacan & Voting Rights (Symposium: Cultural Studies & the Law: Beyond Legal Realism?) 13 Yale Journal of Law and Humanities 283 (2001), Reprinted in CULTURAL ANALYSIS, CULTURAL AND THE LAW: MOVING BEYOND LEGAL REALISM (Austin Sarat & Jonathan Simon eds.) (Duke University Press, 2003)

    Lilies of the Field: A Critique of Adjudication (Critical Legal Studies {Debut de Siecle} (Symposium: On Duncan Kennedy's a Critique of Adjudication) 22 Cardozo Law Review, 1013 (2001)

    Remarks on the Third World and International Law: Voices from the Margins, 94 American Society of International Law Proceedings, 51 (2000)

    Sadomasochism and the Colorline: Reflections on the Million Man March in BLACK MEN ON RACE, GENDER and SEXUALITY: A CRITICAL READER, pp. 68-84 (Devon Carbado ed.) (New York University Press, 1999)

    Faith, Hope and Charity 24 (no. 2) Boston Review (April/May 1999) Reprinted in URGENT TIMES: POLICING AND RIGHTS IN INNER-CITY COMMUNITIES, pp. 89-92 (Joshua Cohen & Rogers, eds.) (Beacon Press, 1999)

    Remarks during Symposium: Is There a Constitutional Right to Vote and Be Represented?  The Case of the District of Columbia, hosted by the American University Law Review and the Program on Law and Government of the Washington College of Law, 48 American University Law Review 674-679, 700-704 (1999)

    Thirteen Stories (Symposium: The Salience of Race: Race in America), 15 Touro Law Review 543 (1999)

    All Flesh Shall See it Together (Symposium: Difference, Solidarity and Law: Building Latina/o Communities Through LatCrit Theory), 19 Chicano-Latino Law Review 163 (1998)

    The Black Body as Fetish Object (Symposium: Citizenship and its Discontents: Centering the Immigrant in the Inter/National Imagination), 76 Oregon Law Review 457 (1997)

    Remarks during Symposium: Is There a Constitutional Right to Vote and Be Represented?  The Case of the District of Columbia, hosted by the American University Law Review and the Program on Law and Government of the Washington College of Law, 48 American University Law Review 674-678, 700-704 (1999)

    Thirteen Stories (Symposium: The Salience of Race: Race in America) 15 Touro Law Review 543 (1999)

    All Flesh Shall See it Together (Symposium: Difference, Solidarity and Law: Building Latina/o Communities Through LatCrit Theory), 19 Chicano-Latino Law Review 163 (1998)

    The Black Body as Fetish Object (Symposium: Citizenship and its Discontents: Centering the Immigrant in the Inter/National Imagination), 76 Oregon Law Review 457 (1997)

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