Adam Thurschwell
Visiting Professor of Law
Office: Room 474
Phone: 202-274-4370
E-mail: thursch@wcl.american.edu
Before entering law teaching, Professor Thurschwell was a civil rights litigator with the Philadelphia firm of Kairys & Rudovsky and a criminal defense attorney with the New York firm of Goldman & Hafetz. He also served as a member of the court-appointed defense team for Terry Nichols in the federal Oklahoma City bombing case, and continues to be actively involved in the defense of federal capital cases. He previously taught at the Oklahoma City University School of Law and the University of Tulsa College of Law. His writings are primarily in the areas of Continental philosophy and capital punishment.
Currently Teaching
Degrees & Universities
- J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School 1984
- B.A., Yale University 1980
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Selected Publications- Adam Thurschwell, Law and Literature and the Right to Death, in Figures of Law: Studies in the Interference of Law and Literature (Gert Hofmann, ed., Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH 2007).
- Adam Thurschwell, Writing and Terror: Don DeLillo on the Task of Literature After 9/11, 19 L. & Lit. 302 (2007, special issue on "The New Exceptionalism: Law and Literature After 9/11).
- Adam Thurschwell, Critical Legal Studies, in A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy (John Protevi, ed., Yale U. Press 2006).
- Adam Thurschwell, Specters and Scholars: Derrida and the Tragedy of Political Thought, 6 German L.J. 87 (2005).
- Adam Thurschwell, Cutting the Branches for Akiba: Agamben’s Critique of Derrida, in Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer, 173-197 (Andrew Norris, ed., Duke U. Press 2005).
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Selected Works in Progress
- Adam Thurschwell, Agamben/Derrida: Four Essays on the Philosophy of the Political ( forthcoming).
- Adam Thurschwell, Law and Literature and the Right to Death, in Figures of Law: Studies in the Interference of Law and Literature (Gert Hoffman, ed., A. Francke Verlag forthcoming).
- Adam Thurschwell, Radical Feminist Liberalism, in Memory, Imagination, Feminism: On Drucilla Cornell (Benjamin Pryor, ed., State U. of N.Y. Press forthcoming).
- Adam Thurschwell, Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty, in Killing States: Lethal Decisions/Final Judgments (Austin Sarat & Jennifer Culbert, eds., S. A. Q. forthcoming 2007).
- Adam Thurschwell, Capital Punishment, in Critical Approaches to Law (Routledge forthcoming 2008).
- Adam Thurschwell, On Continental Philosophy in American Law, __ Penn St. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2009).
- Adam Thurschwell, Benjamin Between Agamben and Derrida: Some Plumpes Denken about Political Messianism, Oxford Literary Rev. (forthcoming 2009).
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Selected Presentations
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Benjamin between Agamben and Derrida: Some Plumpes Denken about Political Messianism (The Messianic Now: Philosophy, Religion, Politics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, U.K., July 4, 2007).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Sovereignty, Literature, Death: Don DeLillo on the Authority of Terrorism (The New Exceptionalism: Law and Literature Since 9/11, Benjamin Cardozo Law School, N.Y.C., N.Y., Oct. 29, 2006).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Politics, or, Juridical Death of the Ethical Other (Centennial Conference on Levinas & Law, McGill University, Montréal, Can., Sept. 17 - 18, 2006).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Race, Terrorism and the Federal Death Penalty (From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race & The Death Penalty in America, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass., May 05 - 06, 2006).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, The Curious Canonization of Saint Walter: Agamben on Paul, Benjamin and Political Messianism (Panel on “St. Paul Among the Philosophers,” 2006 Law, Culture & the Humanities Conference, Syracuse, N.Y., Mar. 17-18, 2006).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Law and Literature and the Right to Death (Figures of Law: Interferences of Law and Literature, University College Cork, Cork, Ir., June 11, 2005).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, In Favorem Vitae (Faculty of Law, University College Cork, Cork, Ir., June 10, 2005).
- Adam Thurschwell, Presentation, Ethical Exception: The Death Penalty and the Philosophers (2004 Modern Languages Association Conference, Phila. Pa., Dec. 27, 2004).
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Selected Media Appearances
