Stanley Eugene Fish (born April 19, 1938)
is an American literary theorist, legal scholar, author and public intellectual. He is currently the Floerscheimer Distinguished Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School in New York City. Fish has previously served as the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and a Professor of Law atFlorida International University and is Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Fish is a major figure associated with postmodernism, at times to his irritation. Instead he views himself as an advocate of anti-foundationalism. He is also viewed as being a major influence in the rise and development of reader-response theory. During his career he has also taught at the Cardozo School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, The University of Pennsylvania, Yale Law, Columbia University, The John Marshall Law School, and Duke University.
Early Life
Fish was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He was raised Jewish. His father, an immigrant from Poland, was a plumber and contractor who made it a priority for his son to get a university education. Fish became the first member of his family to attend college in the US, earning a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959, and an M.A. from Yale University in 1960. He completed his Ph.D. in 1962, also at Yale University.
