New Directions in Law and Society

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Law and society scholarship is a vibrant field of study, encompassing a wide range of perspectives and addressing some of the most pressing questions facing society. These include salient issues such as the impact of technology on legal processes, efforts to redress violence from ongoing wars, understanding and overcoming bias in the legal system, and criminal justice reform. One of the challenges to solving these significant societal problems is that scholars addressing them frequently work independently from other scholars tackling the same issues from different disciplinary, methodological, or theoretical perspectives. Resolving highly significant and complex societal problems necessitates approaching those issues from a variety of perspectives, and requires scholarly exchange and collaboration. In order to encourage scholarly exchange, collaboration, and education, this grant will bring a diverse group of law and society scholars together for a conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from October 2-3, 2020. First, by facilitating opportunities for networking, scholarly exchange, and learning from panel presentations on funding and publishing law and society research, we plan to generate new research activity, highlight diverse forms of law and society research ranging from STEM to the humanities, and give concrete tools for academic advancement. Second, the conference will bring new scholars into the law and society research community, including women, scholars of color, and those from other underrepresented groups, inducting them into science research and helping to foster new research programs. Third, it will provide opportunities for graduate student training through a workshop in which graduate students will present their research and receive intensive feedback from senior scholars. Fourth, plenary sessions and critical intervention panels will be open to the public and will generate an edited volume, thus helping to inform public debate. Finally, we anticipate that participants will broadly disseminate the findings of the conference to their home institutions and in their teaching, thus expanding the conference’s impact. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.