Spotlight

Does conventional property law apply in the virtual world “Second Life?” Can it be used to address social issues like the sale of body parts, human cloning and genetic engineering, and the ownership of human embryos? Or are personal contracts better suited to these topics? Laura Underkuffler, a distinguished scholar who joined the faculty in January 2009 as the J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, covers these topics in her seminar on property law.

“Because these areas are all emerging ones, there is little out there in the way of ‘law,’ ” says Underkuffler, the author of The Idea of Property: Its Meaning and Power. “I became interested in these questions because of my work in property theory and the fact that property rights are so often cited as the answers to current social conflicts. It is difficult to open the newspaper in a major city and not see articles dealing with claimed new forms of property rights.”

Underkuffler is also teaching a course in the theory and history of land use planning. Previously, she taught at Duke Law School, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, and the University of Maine. She also practiced litigation law for six years in Minneapolis.