Nicolette Bruner

Nicolette Bruner is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Legal Studies and the Program in American Studies at Northwestern University. She holds a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature and a J.D. from the University of Michigan. Prior to her current role, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge (University of Chicago) and taught at Western Kentucky University.

Research Focus:

• Legal frameworks for human-nonhuman interactions
• Corporate personhood and its implications for rights/ responsibilities of nonhuman entities (animals, plants, rivers, robots)
• Intersections of American literature, corporate law, and environmental humanities

Teaching Areas: Law and society, legal theory, animal law, corporate law, and US cultural studies. She previously taught courses on reality TV and legal theory, and advanced research seminars.

Publications: Her work analyzes corporate personhood's theoretical and ethical dimensions, appearing in journals like KNOW and Edith Wharton Review.