Susan Ayres
Professor of Law 
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Courses: Criminal Law, Family Law, Gender, Sexual Orientation & the Law, and Law & Literature Seminar

Professor Susan Ayres has been a member of the faculty at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law since 1999. She has also taught at Roger Williams University School of Law, Providence College, and Texas Christian University. In addition to her teaching experience, Professor Ayres clerked for the Texas Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas, and for the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. She also was an associate in the Austin office of McGinnis, Lochridge, and Kilgore, where she practiced commercial litigation, and she served as assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, where she practiced appellate criminal law.

Professor Ayres’ scholarship examines the interplay between cultural theory and the law, including the implications of postmodern feminist theory on current legal doctrines and the intersections between law and literature. Her current research focuses specifically on mothers who kill their children, examining existing cultural constructions in order to critique the inconsistent legal treatment such mothers receive and to offer recommendations for change. Professor Ayres’ work on infanticide has been published in several journals and she has been invited to present her research at many conferences, including the Feminism and Legal Theory Workshop at Emory School of Law in 2006.

Professor Ayres earned her J.D. at Baylor University School of Law. She holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Texas Christian University and an M.A. in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She received her B.A. in English and Philosophy, magna cum laude, from Baylor University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Selected Publications

“Kairos and Safe Havens: The Timing and Calamity of Unwanted Birth, 15 William & Mary Journal of Women & Law 227 (2009).  [Hein] [Westlaw] 

"Who Is to Shame? Narratives of Neonaticide,” 14 William & Mary Journal of Women & Law 55 (2007).[Hein][Westlaw]

“Newfound Religion: Mothers, God, and Infanticide,” 33 Fordham Urban Law Journal  335 (2006). [Hein][Westlaw]

“Hélène Cixous’s ‘The Perjured City’:Nonprosecution Alternatives to Collective Violence,” 9 N.Y. City Law Review 1 (2005). [Hein] [Westlaw].

“[N]ot a story to pass on”: Constructing Mothers Who Kill,” 15 Hastings Women’s Law Journal 39 (2004). ).[Hein][Westlaw].

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