Professor of Law and Justice John J. Francis Scholar. (Torts; Business Torts and Intellectual
Property; Community Economic Development; Jurisprudence Seminar on Race,
Literature, and Critical Theory.) David Dante Troutt joined the Rutgers School of Law-Newark faculty in 1995. As a lawyer who graduated Harvard Law School in 1991, Professor Troutt practiced both public
interest and corporate law, advocating on a broad range of areas including
inner-city economic development, intellectual property, and commercial
litigation. He writes in two primary areas--metropolitan equity and race as
well as intellectual property and culture--often combining law and other
disciplines. His law review scholarship includes, among other works, "A
Portrait of the Trademark as a Black Man: Intellectual Property,
Commodification, and Redescription," 38 U.C. Davis Law Review
1141 (2005); "Ghettoes Made Easy: The Metamarket/Antimarket Dichotomy and
the Legal Challenges of Inner-City Development," 35 Harvard Civil
Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (2000); "Screws, Koons, and Routine
Aberrations: The Use of Fictional Narratives in Federal Police Brutality
Prosecutions," 74 N.Y.U. Law Review 18 (April 1999). Professor Troutt
is also the author and/or editor of several books: The Monkey Suit -- and
Other Short Fiction on African Americans and Justice (The New Press, 1998),
a collection of stories chronicling the imagined experiences of African
Americans involved in actual legal controversies from 1830 to the present; After
the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina
(The New Press, 2006) (including an essay, "Many Thousands Gone,
Again"); and The Importance of Being Dangerous, a novel
(HarperCollins, 2007). In addition to publications analyzing poverty in California cities and New Orleans, Professor Troutt's nonfiction work includes regular
columns about race, law, and society in the New York Times, the Los
Angeles Times, and other periodicals as well as chapters in a variety of
anthologies. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Shawn, and daughter Naima.
