Martha Grace Duncan

Professor of Law

Martha Grace Duncan brings a rich array of experiences and credentials to her work at Emory Law School. As an undergraduate, she lived for six months in Bogotá, Colombia, where she interviewed and traveled with members of the Alianza Nacional Popular, which was then Colombia’s major opposition party. In graduate school, on a fellowship from the Latin American Institute of Columbia University, she journeyed to remote regions of Brazil to interview leaders of sugar worker unions and peasant movements.

For her doctoral thesis in political science, Martha Grace Duncan conducted in-depth interviews with life-long American activists to explore the genesis and meaning of radicalism in their lives. On the strength of this work, she was admitted as a post-doctoral candidate to the NYU Psychoanalytic Institute at New York University Medical Center.

She earned her law degree at Yale Law School, where she was elected an Article and Book Review Editor of the YALE LAW JOURNAL. Following graduation, she clerked for Judge Robert Bork on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Professor Duncan’s research interests focus on the symbolism and meanings of prison; the relationship between the criminal and the law-abiding citizen; law and emotion; Spanish language and literature; and psychoanalysis.

Professor Duncan has published articles and essays in a range of fields and genres, including political science, history, memoir, and law. Her article “So Young and So Untender”: Remorseless Children and the Expectations of the Law was published in the COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW, and her memoir So Have I Been A Good Stepmother? was selected as a “Notable Essay” in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS OF 2007. Her book, ROMANTIC OUTLAWS, BELOVED PRISONS: THE UNCONSCIOUS MEANINGS OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (New York University Press) was reissued in paperback and received numerous favorable reviews.