Dr. Karen Tani

Biography

Karen M. Tani is a scholar of U.S. legal history with broad interests in social welfare law, administrative agencies, and the role of rights in the modern American state. Her current research focuses on the history of disability law in the late twentieth century. Tani teaches courses such as Torts, American Legal History, and Law & Inequality at Penn Carey Law, where she is jointly appointed in the History Department. She is the author of 'States of Dependency: Welfare, Rights, and American Governance, 1935-1972,' which sheds new light on the nature of modern American governance by examining the legal contests surrounding welfare benefits and the administration of those benefits during the New Deal and the modern welfare rights movement. Tani's recent article, 'Curation, Narration, Erasure: Power and Possibility in the U.S. Supreme Court,' is set to appear in the November 2024 issue of the Harvard Law Review. Her published works include notable articles in prestigious journals such as the Yale Law Journal and the Duke Law Journal, where she has received awards for her distinguished scholarship. Before joining the faculty at Penn Carey Law, Tani was a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and held visiting positions at Columbia Law School and Yale Law School. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s JD/PhD program in American Legal History and, after law school, clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Research Interests

Experience