In this episode Conference Director Matthew Biberman talks with Stanley Fish. First rising to prominence as the Milton scholar who unknowingly inaugurated that branch of literary theory later dubbed "reader-response criticism," Fish then spearheaded a critique of liberalism, transforming him into a key early proponent of CLS (critical legal studies). Fish's analysis of first amendment law and matters of free speech has had a sustained influence on American culture and legal practice, with the rise of "critical race studies" being but one indirect result of these pathbreaking interventions.
