WORKSHOP: Future Directions In Law and Social Science

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop assesses progress toward greater intellectual unification within the Law and Social Sciences field; a field comprised of scholars interested in the study of law using empirical, social scientific methods. It is the first workshop of its kind designed to investigate the extent to which new approaches to graduate training and new directions in scholarship in this field might facilitate a greater sense of unification within the larger discipline of Law and Social Sciences. To date, this discipline has been comprised by a variety of disparate research movements with relatively independent professional associations, journals, conferences, graduate programs, etc. The current workshop brings together junior and senior scholars -- criminologists, sociologists, legal scholars, economists, anthropologists, political scientists, and psychologists ? to consider the means by which university programs, journals, and associations might maintain the strengths brought by these divergent disciplinary backgrounds, while simultaneously fostering increasing cohesion among scholars and scholarship. This workshop provides a fresh perspective on the future intellectual development of the Law and Social Sciences field -- particularly as it relates to the training of future scholars and expected research directions. The discussion and recommendations of the workshop are expected to be disseminated via the leading journals in the field.