Jean Cohen (Ph.D., The New School for Social Research, 1979) is a specialist in contemporary political and legal theory with particular research interests in democratic theory, critical theory, civil society, sovereignty and the law. She served as Assistant Professor of Social Science at Bennington College and as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Berkeley before coming to Columbia. In addition to numerous scholarly articles she is the author of Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory; Regulating Intimacy: A New Legal Paradigm, and co-author of Civil Society and Political Theory. She serves on the editorial board of numerous journals and is currently writing a book on rethinking sovereignty and international law in the epoch of globalization.  Her research interests are contemporary political theory, continental political theory, Germany, France, American legal theory, feminist theory, civil society, privacy, gender and sexuality, social movements, sovereignty and rights.