Provost Diversity Fellow: Sohum Pal

Sohum Pal, PhD candidate

Department and School
History, Arts & Sciences

Bio
Sohum is a JD/PhD student at Columbia Law School and the Department of History in the Atlantic World field. He received a BA/MA from Yale in 2020, also in history, after which he worked as a paralegal, freelance writer, and translator. His primary interest is in demonstrating the role of enslavement in the development of property and contract law. His work illustrates how Blackness became associated with financial risk, tracing this association from the seventeenth century to the present.

As a critic, he writes primarily about feminist philosophy, violence, and racism. His work appears in Los Angeles Review of Books, Lux, and is forthcoming elsewhere.

Advisor
Natasha Lightfoot, Associate Professor, Department of History and Chris Brown, Professor, Department of History

Favorite hangout on or off campus
Film Forum

Recommended book
Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor by Patricia Williams (Professor Emerita at CLS!)

To learn more about Sohum Pal, please follow him on X or email him directly.