Center in Law, Society and Culture

The Center in Law, Society and Culture brings together UC Irvine faculty and graduate students who share interests in law, society, and culture, broadly defined. Issues of interest to center affiliates include race, law and justice; law and literature; critical legal theory; legal consciousness; law and space; legal philosophy, culture and policing; the interaction of local and international legal cultures; globalization; migration; knowledge production; law, science, and society; and law and history. The center sponsors Symposia in Critical Legalities, discussions of participants' work, workshops, colloquia, a graduate fellows program, and other activities that foster intellectual dialogue relating to issues in law, society, and culture. All Center symposia and colloquia are free and open to the campus community and the public.

Critical Legalities Symposia

The Center in Law, Society and Culture holds quarterly Critical Legalities Symposia. By "critical legalities," we refer to (1) ways that law is critical to cutting edge theory, (2) new forms of analysis, and (3) examinations of forms of law that undergird established institutions, structures, and cultural phenomena. Symposia focus on a particular theme, feature presentations by UCI faculty and outside speakers, and include a workshop structured around central issues. Themes for 2008-2009  included "Red Cents and Indian Country: Native Claims to Things," "The Human Faces of the War on Terror," and "Covering Law."

Symposia for 2009-2010 are built around the broad theme of "law beyond the written word," and include: "Covering the Law: Documenting Justice in Picture, Performance and Press" (Fall 2009),  "Youth and Digital Culture" (Winter 2010),  "Law as History: Theory and Method in Legal History" (Spring 2010), and "Visualizing 'Governing Through Crime' in California"  (Spring 2010). 

Center Meetings

We hold 2-3 center meetings per year. At these meetings, we read and discuss a recent publication or work-in-progress of one of our affiliates. The author briefly describes and contextualizes his or her work, and then another center member (typically, from a different discipline) serves as discussant, providing comments and raising questions. The discussant’s comments are followed by a more general discussion. These meetings are open to other interested faculty and students who are not members of our center, and typically occur over lunch.

Other Activities

The Center in Law, Society and Culture also sponsors colloquia, workshops, a graduate fellows program, and graduate student reading groups. We also regularly co-sponsor events put on by other units on campus. Please see the listings below for details of events of interest across campus. 

Upcoming CLSC Events

Please see the events calendar for more details.

  • Winter 2010
    • January 28, 2010 Critical Legalities Workshop: Youth and Digital Culture, with John Palfrey (Harvard Law), Mimi Ito (UCI, Informatics), & Elizabeth Losh (UCI, Humanities): 3:00-5:00 PM, Humanities Gateway 1010 
    • DATE TBA:  Center Meeting: Angela Garcia (Anthropology), "Addictive Properties: Intergenerational Heroin Use and the Mark of Inheritance,” Donna Schuele (CLS), discussant. 
  • Spring 2010
    • Law As History: Theory and Method in Legal History (Co-sponsored event with UCI School of Law)
    • Symposium: Visualizing Governing Through Crime in California, May 13, 2010, all day

 

Co-sponsored Events & UCI Events of Interest to CLSC 

  • Wednesday, January 27, 2010: The Orange County Human Rights Association (OCHRA) at the UC Irvine School of Law will be holding its first public event next Wednesday, January 27, 2010 from 5 to 6 PM in 1100 Donald Bren Hall. This event will focus on the human rights implications of immigration law, and our speakers will be Professor Jennifer Chacón and Professor Stephen Lee from the School of Law. This event is open to the public. For more information, e-mail: ochra.uci@gmail.com."
  • Co-sponsored event: Thursday, February 4, reception @ 6:30 PM ; performance @ 7:30 PM, McCormick Screening Room, Humanities Gateway 1070: Lecture/Performance by Mark Hosler, Adventures in Illegal Art: Creative Media Resistance and Negativland. 

  • Co-sponsored event: Friday, February 19: “SPEAK, WRITE, PAINT: Colonial Scripts and Indigenous Literacies in Latin America,”  Humanities Gateway 1010.

     

    10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Presentations: 

    “Conflicting Nahua and Spanish Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico in the Florentine Codex” Kevin Terraciano, History, UCLA

“Atahualpa’s ‘Encounter with the Word’ Revisited Two Decades Later” Patricia Seed, History, UCI

 

“Objects/Records/Memories: Colonial Andean Literacies” Carolyn Dean, History of Art & Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz

 

2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.  Commentary:  

Chaired by Ivette Hernández-Torres, (Spanish & Portuguese, UCI) by Rachel Sarah O’Toole (History, UCI), Adriana Michele Campos Johnson (Comparative Literature, UCI), and Alka Patel (Art History, UCI).  

            A reception will follow from 5:00-6:30 pm in the home of Jane O. Newman, 16 Eliot Court.

Funding for the center's 2009-2010 activities has been generously provided by the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, the School of Humanities, the School of Law, the School of Social Ecology, the School of Social Sciences, the Office of Research and Jim Peterson & Microsemi.

For more information, contact the Center in Law, Society and Culture's co-director, Mona Lynch at lynchm@uci.edu or (949) 824-0047.