(Courtesy of Touro College) Thane Rosenbaum, celebrated novelist, essayist and law professor, was named Distinguished University Professor at Touro College, Dr. Alan Kadish, president of Touro announced.
“I am pleased that Thane Rosenbaum has joined the Touro College and University System,” said Dr. Kadish. “Rosenbaum is a thoughtful and perceptive scholar and public intellectual whose analysis and thought leadership is widely sought by educators, students and media outlets across the country and globally. In addition to his public leadership, we are excited about the impact he will have on our students through his teaching.”
Rosenbaum is the founder and creative director of a non-profit organization known as the Forum on Life, Culture & Society (FOLCS). FOLCS was hosted by NYU Law School, and before that, Fordham Law School, and is now affiliated with Touro College. FOLCS provides public programming that focuses on the big ideas of the day, featuring newsmakers, government leaders and artists in conversations that inform the public in an engaging way, and aspires to be a powerful tool for social change. FOLCS programs include a conversation series, a film series and international short film competition, a play reading known as Theater of Law, a “trials & error” series, and the annual Law of the Land: The Supreme Court’s Year in Review. Many of these programs take place at the 92nd Street Y, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the New York City Bar Association, among other venues.
Since its founding in 2005, FOLCS has hosted an impressive array of celebrated guests such as Bill Clinton, Elie Wiesel, Mario Cuomo, Jeb Bush, Ed Koch, Frank Lautenberg, Eric Cantor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker and artists such as Sir Ben Kingsley, Laura Dern, Paul Giamatti, Andy Garcia, Richard Dreyfuss, Chadwick Boseman, Elizabeth Marvel, Sanaa Lathan, Debra Winger, Sterling K. Brown, Kate Hudson, Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, John Turturro and countless writers and directors.
According to Rosenbaum, he joined Touro “because I was honored that Touro’s president, Alan Kadish, offered me a position as a Distinguished University Professor. I also wanted to be a part of Touro’s ongoing growth and evolution as a dynamic place for students and faculty. The fact that it is under Jewish auspices appealed to me, as well, given that so much of my work as a novelist, essayist and commentator involves Jewish themes. And I believe that FOLCS has found a new home where it can thrive and call attention to Touro as a vibrant and cutting-edge institution.”
He is author of the novels, “How Sweet It Is!,” “The Stranger Within Sarah Stein,” “The Golems of Gotham,” Second Hand Smoke” and “Elijah Visible.” Rosenbaum also authored “Payback: The Case for Revenge” and “The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What’s Right.” He is the editor of the anthology, “Law Lit, from Atticus Finch to “The Practice”: A Collection of Great Writing about the Law.” His forthcoming book, set for publication on March 17, 2020, is entitled “Saving Free Speech… From Itself.”
He serves as the legal analyst for CBS News Radio and moderates an annual discussion series on culture, world events and politics at the 92nd Street Y called The Talk Show. He is a Middle East analyst for i24 News and appears regularly on JBS TV and other cable news networks. He also writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, CNN, Daily Beast, Slate, Mediaite, Jewish Week, Algemeiner, Jewish Journal, JTA, Times of Israel and many other outlets.
Rosenbaum earned his B.A., summa cum laude and valedictorian, from the University of Florida, an M.P.A. from Columbia University’s School of Public Policy and Administration and his J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review. Before being appointed a Distinguished Fellow at NYU School of Law in 2014, he was the John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Fordham Law School, from 2006 to 2014.
