"Working From the World Up: Equality’s Future," a New Legal Realism Conference, will be held March 14-15, 2008, at the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street on the UW-Madison campus. The event celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project.
Sponsors of the conference are the University of Wisconsin Law School, Institute for Legal Studies, Feminism and Legal Theory Project at Emory University, and the Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender and Society.
The conference will feature a keynote address by Patricia Williams, the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University, and panels discussing contemporary issues.
Hosts of the conference are Victoria Nourse, Burrus-Bascom Professor of Law (Wisconsin) and L.Q.C. Professor of Law (Emory); Martha Albertson Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law and Director of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project at Emory University; and the editorial staff of the Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender and Society.
The Conference Overview states:
We are at a historic juncture in the progress of race and sex equality in American life, with the election of the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives and the first Presidential race in which female and African-American candidates have a serious chance of capturing the White House. This conference aims to honor the institutions and the people who have theorized sex and race in ways that have helped to change the world, and to forge the future of the study of race and sex equality in the law. In short, it will be an opportunity to reflect on the key concepts of the past, so as to better understand the future.
Twenty-five years ago, the Feminist Legal Theory Project, under the direction of Professor Martha Fineman, helped to bring feminist thought to the forefront of the legal academy. It was (and is) a project born of the world, responding to real lives and needs, reflecting the law and society tradition of reasoning-from-the-world-to-law. From this tradition was born a vibrant scholarship not only on sex equality but also on the "intersection" of race, sex and sexuality, inaugurated by the work of pioneer theorists such as Kimberle Crenshaw and Patricia Williams.
For information on conference presenters and a link to the Registration Form, see http://law.wisc.edu/ils/flt25thconfprogram.html . For more information, contact Symposium Editor Emily Long: emilylong@wisc.edu. or Pam Hollenhorst, Associate Director of the Institute for Legal Studies, pshollen@wisc.edu .
Submitted by on February 28, 2008
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