"Have You Eaten, Have You Divorced? Debating the Meaning of Freedom in Marriage in China" is the title of a lecture today, Oct. 30, by William P. Alford, a leading scholar in the fields of Chinese law and legal history and adviser on international trade.
His presentation, which takes place at the A.D. White House on the Cornell campus at 4:30 p.m., is the inaugural lecture of the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture at Cornell Law School. It is free and open to the public.
Alford is the Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law as well as dean of the graduate program and director of International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. In addition to the above areas of expertise, Alford is knowledgeable about comparative law and human rights in East Asia and international technology transfer and international trade. He has served as a dispute resolution panelist for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and as an adviser to the World Bank, Ford Foundation, World Trade Organization and the governments of China and the United States.
"William Alford is one of the most important and original scholars of Chinese law today," said Annelise Riles, professor of law and of anthropology and director of Cornell Law School's Clarke program. "Through topics from marriage reform to free trade to the ownership of ideas, Professor Alford always seeks to understand the law in terms of subtle but fascinating trends in the culture at large."
Alford holds an LL.B. from Cambridge University, master's degrees in Chinese studies and Chinese history from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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