Literary Woman and Economic Man at the Altar of Intellectual Property

FAIN: FT-51050-03

Shubha Ghosh
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Buffalo, NY 14222-1004)

My goal is to draft a book manuscript that is a critique of legal scholar Robin West’s ideas about law and literature and law and economics. Professor West creates a dichotomy between literary sensibility and economic thinking (the first associated with the feminine, the second with the masculine) to criticize market theory and develop a feminist theory of jurisprudence that is based on empathy and fairness. My book will draw on the history of literary markets as well as developments in intellectual property law to illustrate how the institution of markets and notions of gender and the literary self have evolved together. When completed, my work will contribute to the burgeoning intersection of law, economics and the humanities.