Professor Bergelson earned her diploma in Slavic languages and
literatures with distinction from Moscow State University and her Ph.D.
in philology from the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies in Moscow,
Russia. She earned her J.D. cum laude from the University of
Pennsylvania Law School, where she was on the Law Review and was named
to the Order of the Coif.
Professor Bergelson has been a lecturer at Moscow State University,
the Polish Cultural Center, and the Literary Institute in Moscow.
Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2001, she was an associate with
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York for six years. She is
fluent in Russian and Polish and has a reading proficiency in
Bulgarian, Belorussian, and Ukranian.
Professor Bergelson's book Victims' Rights and Victims' Wrongs: A Theory of Comparative Criminal Liability was published in August 2009 by Stanford University Press. Works in progress are "The Defense of Consent" in the Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (2014) and "The Meaning of Consent" in the Ohio Journal of Criminal Law (2014). Forthcoming articles are "The Defense of Consent" in the Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (2014) and "The Meaning of Consent" in the Ohio Journal of Criminal Law (2014).
Her recent articles include "The Boundaries of the Criminal Law," 7 CRIM. L. AND PHIL'Y 383 (2013); "The Duty to Protect the Victim - or the Duty to Suffer Punishment" 32 LAW AND PHIL'Y 199 (2013); "Victimless Crimes," in International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Hugh LaFollette et al., editions.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); "Vice Is Nice but Incest Is Best: Problem of a Moral Taboo," 7 Criminal Law and Philosophy 43 (2013); "The Defense of Consent" in Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013); "Choice of Evils: In Search of a Viable Rationale," 6 Crim. L. and Phil'y 289 (2012); "A Fair Punishment for Humbert Humbert: Strict Liability and Affirmative Defenses," 14 New Crim. L. Rev. 55 (2011); "Justification or Excuse? Exploring the Meaning of Provocation," 42 Texas Tech. L. Rev. 307 (2009); "The Case of Weak Will and Wayward Desire" in Criminal Law and Philosophy (2009); "Provocation: Not Just a Partial Excuse" in Criminal Law Conversations (Oxford University Press, 2009); "Consent to Harm" in the Pace Law Review and also in The Ethics of Consent Theory and Practice
(Alan Wertheimer and Franklin G. Miller, editions., Oxford University
Press, 2009); "Justification or Excuse" Exploring the Meaning of
Provocation" in the Texas Tech Law Review (2009); "Autonomy, Dignity, and Consent to Harm" in the Rutgers Law Review (2008); "The Right to Be Hurt: Testing the Boundaries of Consent" in the George Washington Law Review (2007); and "Rights, Wrongs, and Comparative Justifications" in the Cardozo Law Review (2007) and also in Law of Privileges-Journalists and Executives (R. Satyanarayana, edition., ICFAI University Press, 2009).
Professor
Bergelson was 2010–2011 chair of the Association of American Law
Schools' Section on Jurisprudence. As a Fulbright Specialist, she visited Hebrew University Law School in
November-December 2013. Professor Bergelson is on the editorial boards
of BdeF and Edisofer (Buenos Aires and Madrid) and Law and Philosophy.
