Personally I bring a real enthusiasm to the classroom. It is usually evident to the students that I love what I do. I care about them and want them to perform well. That enthusiasm, coupled with a student-centered approach, is contagious. And for me it is the most gratifying experience that one can have as a teacher. If I need to provide some basic ideas by introducing fundamental concepts or theories, I outline thumbnail sketches of the ideas on the board and proceed to engage the students in conversations about those ideas. What are the implications of these concepts? Are they plausible? If so, why? If not, why not? How do these ideas fit with your own experiences, religious or otherwise? If the community to which you belonged espoused those ideas, how would your worldview be different? The basic purpose of a student-centered approach is to provide students the opportunity to express ownership of ideas. That means students must be engaged in their discussion, so that they can repeat their basic outline – not as a matter of rote, but as a way to reflect upon their meaning and significance with their colleagues.
James McBride
Clinical Professor
Law; Religious Studies; Politics;Psychoanalysis; Political Economy; Feminist and Critical Theory
2010 - Recipient of Summer Grant for the Liberal Studies Tech Academy, NYU
1995-98 - Golding Fellowship, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (covering tuition for all three years of law school)
1996 - Recipient of the Gustavus Myers Foundation Award for “Outstanding Book in Human Rights,
1995-96 - Faculty Fellowship, Fordham University 1994. Tenured, Fordham University
1989. Recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities Stipend
Books
War, Battering and Other Sports: The Gulf Between American Men and Women. NewYork: Humanities Press, 1995
Cults, Culture and the Law: Perspectives on the New Religious Movements (co-editor). Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1985.
Articles
“The ‘Wild West’ on Wall Street: An Analysis of and Prognosis for
the American Model of Postmodern Finance Capital in the Global Economy.” Forthcoming in publication of proceedings at Health and Wealth of US Capitalism: A Critical Condition?/ Richesse et santé d’une nation: le modèle économique américain en phase critique? International Conference, organized by Cervepas (Center for Research on the English-Speaking World), Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, June 2012.
“Teaching the Postmodern: An Excursion into the Hyperreality of Jean Baudrillard’s America.” Fothcoming in the Association of Core Texts and Courses (ACTC) Publication of its Proceedings of ACTC’s 17th Annual Conference, June 2011.
"A Tale of Capital, Philanthropy, and the Supreme Court" in differences, 2007, Vol. 18, No. 3, 7-42.
"Revisiting a Seminal Text of the Law & Literature Movement: A Girardian Reading of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor" in MARGINS: The University of Maryland's Interdisciplinary Journal on Race, Religion, Class, and Gender, 2003, Vol. 3, No. 2, 285-332.
"The Symptomatic Expression of Male Neuroses: Collective Effervescence, Male Gender Performance, and Football" in God in the Details: American Religion in Everyday Life, Eric Mazur and Kate McCarthy, eds., New York: Routledge, 2000, 123-138.
"'To Make Martyrs of Their Children,' Female Genital Mutilation, Religious Legitimation and the Constitution" in Religion and Sex in American Public Life, Kathleen Sands, ed., London: Oxford University, 2000, 219-244.
"Alcoholics Anonymous: Anonymous Theists? Griffin v. Coughlin and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State in the New York State Prison System," 19 Cardozo Law Review 1455-1530, Winter 1997-98. [Refereed Publication]
"Capital Punishment as the Unconstitutional Establishment of Religion: A Girardian Reading of the Death Penalty," 37 Journal of Church and State, 263-87 (1995). [Reprinted in Capital Punishment: A Reader, Glen Stassen, ed., Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1998, 182-202.]