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Thane Rosenbaum
Author Photo of Thane Rosenbaum
Born	1960 (age 63–64) New York, New York
Education	B.A. University of Florida M.P.A. Columbia University J.D. University of Miami
Occupation(s)	Novelist, Essayist, Law Professor, and Director of the Forum on Law, Culture & Society, http://www.FOLCS.org.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, and law professor. His articles, reviews, and commentary appear frequently in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast and the Huffington Post, among other national publications. He is the director of the Forum on Law, Culture, & Society (http://www.FOLCS.org), hosted by NYU Law School. The 92nd Street Y hosts "The Talk Show with Thane Rosenbaum," an annual series of discussions on arts, culture, and politics. As the moderator of the Trials & Error series at 92Y, his panelists revisit high profile court cases with lawyers, journalists, and parties to the action. He has been a professor of law, teaching human rights, legal humanities, and law and literature, for over two decades.

Rosenbaum's "multifaceted career has been punctuated by the unsentimental unmasking of the moral compromises made by civic institutions, individual actors, and national leaders in pursuing just and peaceful resolutions to social grievances." His observations about cultural and political topics in the public discourse typically highlight the "moral considerations in law and civil society, and their place within the broader culture." On the international stage, Rosenbaum has called attention to the distinct concerns of cases involving genocide and terrorism. His recent projects have explored the unparalleled reach of the protections granted under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and called attention to the harms caused by unbridled hateful speech used to deliver a general message about certain social groups by targeting specific individuals. The provocative questions he has raised in essays and interviews are the subject of a forthcoming book, "The High Price of Free Speech: Rethinking the First Amendment."

Nonfiction

Payback: The Case for Revenge (University of Chicago Press 2013).

The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right (HarperCollins Publishers 2004); (paperback, Harper Perennial 2005).

Novels

The Stranger Within Sarah Stein (young adult) (Texas Tech University Press 2012)

The Golems of Gotham (HarperCollins Publishers 2002); (paperback, Harper Perennial 2003).

Second Hand Smoke (St. Martin’s Press 1999); (paperback, St. Martin’s Griffin 2000); (Dutch publications, Yesterday's Smoke, Bzztoh 1999).

Elijah Visible (St. Martin’s Press 1996); (paperback, St. Martin’s Griffin 1999).

Anthologies

Law Lit: From Atticus Finch to the Practice: A Collection of Great Writing About the Law (Editor) (The New Press 2007).

Appearances in Documentary Films

• “Forgiveness: A Time to Love & A Time to Hate,” 2011, Helen Whitney, director and producer.

• "Imagine This: A Musical," 2010.

• “Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust,” 2005, Daniel Anker, director and producer.

Short Stories

• "The Yehudah Triangle," in Promised Lands: New Jewish American Fiction on Longing and Belonging, (ed. Derek Rubin) 2010

• "The Day the Brooklyn Dodgers Finally Died," JewishFiction.net 2010

• "The Maccabee of Miami Beach," Chanukah Lights 2005 and 2006, National Public Radio, December 2005.

• "Cattle Car Complex," Selected Shorts (read by Mark Nelson), National Public Radio, first recorded at Symphony Space, in Manhattan, New York, April 17, 2002.

Prizes & Awards

• Publisher's Weekly Starred Review 2012 for Payback: The Case for Revenge.

• San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Books of 2004 for The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right.

• San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Books of 2002 for The Golems of Gotham.

• Finalist, National Jewish Book Award 1999 for Second Hand Smoke.

• Edward Lewis Wallant Award 1996, Best Book of Jewish-American Fiction for Elijah Visible.

Professional Background

Rosenbaum has been teaching at Fordham Law School since 1992. In Spring 2005, he was a visiting professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, where he has been a frequent speaker, including at the annual Yom HaShoah Lecture hosted jointly by the American Society for Yad Vashem and Cardozo's Program in Holocaust & Human Rights Studies on “Remember How the Law Went Horribly Wrong”; the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials on "A Reappraisal and Their Legacy"; and as the Uri & Caroline Bauer Distinguished Lecturer on Rosenbaum's book, “The Myth of Moral Justice." Prior to teaching, he was an associate in the litigation department at Debevoise & Plimpton, where he also coordinated the firm's pro bono cases. Immediately after law school, he clerked for the Honorable Eugene P. Spellman, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Florida.

As a cultural commentator, Rosenbaum has been invited to speak at universities and other venues around the world, including the Yale University International Human Rights Symposium, Princeton University, the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, the Goethe-Institut in New York, the Skirball Cultural Center (LA) and the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU, the Center for Ideas & Society at UC Riverside, the Literature Forum at the Brecht-Hous in Berlin, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., at the Israel Advocates Conference of the Miami Jewish Federation, the New York City Bar Association, and as the keynote speaker on Yom HaShoah before the New York City Council, among others.

As the Director of the Forum on Law, Culture, & Society (FOLCS), Rosenbaum has hosted a wide range of notable guests, including Bill Clinton, Elie Wiesel, Mario Cuomo, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Paul Volcker, Ed Koch, Bob Simon, Dick Cavett and many others.

A long-time host of the 92Y series, Newsmakers & Trendsetters, Rosenbaum is now the moderator of The Talk Show With Thane Rosenbaum at 92Y, where he has interviewed authors, musicians, directors, screenwriters, poets, politicians, and other public figures, including Jeb Bush, Ambassador Michael Oren, Eric Cantor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lawrence Summers, Sidney Lumet, Natan Sharansky, Imre Kertesz, Bret Stephens, and Bob Turner, among many others.

Education

Rosenbaum graduated in 1986 from the University of Miami School of Law (J.D., cum laude), where he was a Harvey T. Reid Scholar and served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Miami Law Review. In 1983, he earned an M.P.A. (conferred in 1988) from Columbia University's School of Public Policy and Administration. In 1981, he graduated from the University of Florida (B.A., summa cum laude), where he was class valedictorian and the Florida nominee for the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships.

References

1. TheDailyBeast.com
2. HuffingtonPost.com, Thane Rosenbaum Blog
3. Harry Walker Agency Biography
4. Forum on Law, Culture, & Society
5. Trials & Error at 92Y
6. Encyclopedia of Global Justice, edited by Prof. Deen K. Chatterjee
7. Encyclopedia of Global Justice, edited by Prof. Deen K. Chatterjee
8. Should Neo-Nazis Be Allowed Free Speech?
9. JewishFiction.net
10. FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship & History, Faculty Scholarship
11. "Justice Delayed? The Impact of Time on the Trials of Gross Atrocities," The Robert Bernstein International Human Rights Symposium at Yale University, New Haven, CT, April 4, 2008; Yale Law School, The Myth of Moral Justice: A Conversation with Thane Rosenbaum, moderated by Dean Harold Hongju Koh, with the Reverend Jerry Streets and former dean Anthony Kronman, commentators, New Haven, CT, November 29, 2004; Yale Oral History Project, The Contribution of Oral Testimony to Holocaust and Genocide Studies: “Holocaust Literature: Freedom and Responsibility” (with Aharon Appelfeld and E.L. Doctorow), New Haven, CT, October 8, 2002
12. Princeton University, Celebrating Jewish-American Writers, Princeton, NJ, October 23, 2001
13. What’s So Bad About Holocaust Films?, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies and the UCLA/Mellon Program on the Holocaust in American & World Culture, March 5, 2009; Holocaust Fatigue: A Reading and Discussion, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies and the UCLA-Mellon Program on the Holocaust in American & World Culture, March 4, 2009; UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, conference: Golem: Between Magic and Metaphor, June 3, 2004
14. Goethe-Institut, Pen American Center, Joseph Roth and Berlin in the 1920s, New York, NY, January 14, 2003
15. The Decline of Ethical Standards, Moral Responsibility, and Spiritual Values in Modern America, Center for Ideas & Society, University of California at Riverside, March 3, 2009
16. Readings and panel discussions with German novelists, Literature Forum at the Brecht-Hous in Berlin, Germany, co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, December 2, 2003
17. Conference on Displaced Persons, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 17, 2000
18. 2005 Israel Advocates Conference, sponsored by the Miami Jewish Federation, Orlando, FL, January 23, 2005
19. Justice & Revenge, Book TV on C-SPAN
20. Yom HaShoah, Keynote Address, New York City Council, City Hall, New York, New York, April 23, 2009
21. A Conversation With President Bill Clinton at the Forum on Law, Culture, & Society
22. Elie Wiesel at the Forum Film Festival
23. Governor Mario Cuomo at the Forum on Law, Culture, & Society
24. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor in Conversation About "12 Angry Men"
25. The Forum Film Festival Hosts Paul A. Volcker
26. A Conversation With Mayor Ed Koch
27. Bob Simon of 60 Minutes Joins the Forum Film Festival
28. The Forum Film Festival Hosts Dick Cavett
29. A Conversation With Jeb Bush
30. The Talk Show Hosts Congressman Eric Cantor at the 92Y
31. The Talk Show Hosts Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
32. The Talk Show Hosts Lawrence Summers at 92Y
33. An Evening With Sidney Lumet at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life
34. The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry: Pivotal Figures from a Heroic Era, with Elie Wiesel, Natan Sharansky, Richard Perle, and Gal Beckerman at the 92Y Bronfman Center for Jewish Life
35. An Evening with Imre Kertesz, 92nd Street Y, Unterberg Poetry Center, October 19, 2004
36. “Why Zionism has Become a Dirty Word,” with Abraham Foxman, Bret Stephens, and Oren Rudavsky, at the 92Y Bronfman Center for Jewish Life, March 24 2009
37. The Jewish Vote and Campaign 2012, with Mayor Ed Koch and Congressman Bob Turner

External links

• ThaneRosenbaum.com
• Thane Rosenbaum at IMDb
• FOLCS images

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• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• American academics
• American Jews
• American male novelists
• Living people
• University of Florida alumni
• 1960 births