Mark S. Weiner, Professor of Law and Sidney I. Reitman Scholar at Rutgers School of Law–Newark, has won the 2015 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.
Professor Weiner was selected for his insights about the legal and social structures of clan-based societies and their relationship to governments based on the rule of law that are presented in The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013).
Drawing lessons from several kinship-organized societies ranging from medieval Iceland to the Palestinian Authority, the book argues that, to be successful, democratic ideals require not only a robust state but also an appreciation for the benefits that clan societies provide its members. “When we fail to understand the clan heritage of a great many of our enemies,” Weiner writes, “their motivation for taking up arms against us in the first place will remain obscure.”
A scholar whose work bridges the disciplines of history, law and cultural studies, Weiner joined the Rutgers University–Newark law faculty in 2001. His first book, Black Trials: Citizenship From the Beginnings of Slavery to the End of Caste (Alfred A. Knopf), was selected a 2005 Silver Gavel Award winner by the American Bar Association for its contribution to the public understanding of law. His second book, Americans without Law: The Racial Boundaries of Citizenship (NYU Press), was awarded the President’s Book Award from the Social Science History Association.
Professor Weiner has spoken worldwide on legal topics, has published articles in many professional journals, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science History Association, Wesleyan University, New York University, Whiting Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, and Yale University. In 2009, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Akureyri, Iceland, where he began his kinship research for The Rule of the Clan.
Professor Weiner, who is on extended leave from Rutgers, has been a visiting professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law and the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. He edits the blog, Worlds of Law, where he posts commentary and documentary videos about legal history, comparative law, and rare books.
This spring he will teach an introduction to U.S. constitutional law and a course on law in American film as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Salzburg, Austria.
The Grawemeyer Awards are five annual prizes given in the fields of music, political science, psychology, education and religion. They were created at the University of Louisville in 1984 by H. Charles Grawemeyer, a Kentucky industrialist, entrepreneur and philanthropist to help make the world a better place.
