- 919-613-8547
- jds@law.duke.edu
- Assistant: Jyren Dillard
A leading theorist in critical jurisprudence and the comparative history of legal thought, Desautels-Stein teaches Conflicts of Law, Comparative Law, International Law, Philosophy of Law, Antitrust, Constitutional Law, and Property. Desautels-Stein’s recent book, The Right to Exclude: A Critical Race Approach to Sovereignty, Borders, and International Law (Oxford, 2023), uncovers a global history of racism in the encounter between international law and migration, and offers a theory of contemporary racial ideology, what Desautels-Stein calls “postracial xenophobia.” His forthcoming book with Stanford University Press is titled Race, Racism, and International Law, co-edited with Devon Carbado, Kim Crenshaw, and Chantal Thomas. Desautels-Stein’s prior books include The Jurisprudence of Style: A Structuralist History of American Pragmatism and Liberal Legal Thought (Cambridge, 2018), and the co-edited volume with the historian Christopher Tomlins, Searching for Contemporary Legal Thought (Cambridge, 2017). Desautels-Stein is the Founding Director of the University of Colorado's Center for Critical Thought, a site for interdisciplinary and collaborative research housed with the University's Graduate School. Prior to joining the University of Colorado, Desautels-Stein practiced for three years in the Antitrust and Competition Group at Latham & Watkins in Washington, DC, served in the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and worked as a consultant to the Afghanistan Constitutional Commission. During his graduate education, he was awarded a fellowship with a South African development organization, and taught a course on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement at Changzhou College in China. Desautels-Stein holds degrees from Harvard Law School, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.