Fellow
E-mail: nbuenger@wisc.edu
Office: 975 Bascom Mall Rm 6210
Biography
Nancy Buenger is a Fellow at the Institute for Legal Studies and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for Law, Society & Justice (CLSJ), an undergraduate program interrelating law, the humanities, and social sciences. Dr. Buenger holds a doctorate in history from the University of Chicago, and is the recipient of the 2010-11 Law and Society Postdoctoral Fellowship at Wisconsin and the 2009-10 Alumni Fund Fellowship at the University of Minnesota Law School. She was a 2009 Fellow of the Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History at Wisconsin.
Dr. Buenger's research and teaching combine her interests in law, public history, and new media. Her first book project, the graphic history Extraordinary Remedies: The Court of Chancery and Equitable Justice in Chicago, investigates a juryless tribunal that can set aside the law's letter and craft discretionary remedies according to the dictates of conscience and alternative legal traditions. Her CLSJ courses include Legal Pluralism, exploring the global diversity of legal cultures; Clues, tracing the spiritual and scientific beliefs that inform criminal evidentiary practices; and Looking Beyond the Law's Letter, which engages experiential learning, digital technologies, and juvenile justice, an equity jurisdiction.
A former Chicago History Museum conservator, her historical and museum publications include the academic prize-winning digital site Wet with Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak. Highlighting a collection of bloodstained artifacts associated with Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the site draws on the devotional interest in the President and DNA analysis to prompt questions about bioethics, the creation of public icons, the authenticity of historical artifacts, and the limitations of scientific research.
