The Baldy Center facilitates faculty research by providing opportunities for collaboration, supporting individual and group research projects, and sponsoring research forums of various types. Areas of research, working groups, and seminar topics vary from year to year in response to changing faculty interests.
Working Groups
Some of the research activities of the Baldy Center are organized within Working Groups, which are open to any interested UB faculty member. The Working Groups provide a way to encourage informal networking, exchange, and collaboration as well as facilitating more formal research projects, workshops, and conferences. Working Group activities include meeting informally for a discussion of readings, presenting research work-in-progress, hosting visiting speakers, or organizing research workshops. If you would like to participate in the activities of any of the following Working Groups please contact the group convenor:
Children, Families, and the Law
Examines the intersections between children, families and the legal institutions with which they intersect and the relationship between "private family' and “public law.” Many activities involve community-based research and involve the wider professional community.
Convenor: Suzanne Tomkins, Law, 645-2103, tomkins@buffalo.edu.
ClassCrits
Interested in questions of law and economic inequality arising from within the tradition of critical legal scholarship. Aims to provide an alternative to the predominant discussions of “law and economics” grounded in neoclassical economic theory and its denial of "class." Working Group details
Convenors: Martha McCluskey, Law, 645-2326, mcclusk@buffalo.edu Athena Mutua, Law, 645-2873, admutua@buffalo.edu
Cultural Policy and Diplomacy
Seek to draw together scholars interested in exploring the many facets of the typically under-researched areas of cultural policy and diplomacy. Scholars from the fields of law, political science, arts management, sociology, urban research and cultural tourism will meet on a regular basis to exchange their scholarship and to listen to addresses by visiting speakers.
Convenor: Ruth Bereson, Arts Management Program, 645-2435 x 1088, bereson@buffalo.edu.
Gender, Law, and Social Policy
Explores the intersections of legal, social, and political constructions of gender and gender-related issues and the implications of these constructions for public policy.
Convenor: Isabel Marcus, Law, 645-2108, imarcus@buffalo.edu
International and Comparative Legal Studies
Fosters interdisciplinary research on the national and transnational arenas where law and policy intersect with general social phenomena and practices. Also encourages examination of relationships among cultures, economies, and legal norms.
Convenor: Claude Welch, Political Science, 645-2251 x417, cwelch@buffalo.edu
Law and Religion
Focuses on the interrelations of law, religion, and society in this and other cultures and interrogates the relationship between law and religion in social groups and institutions.
Convenors: Jeannette Ludwig, Romance Languages & Lits, 645-2191 x1175, jmludwig@buffalo.edu; Stephanie Phillips, Law, 645-2201, slp@buffalo.edu
Migration Policy and Pluralism
Focuses on law and public policy surrounding international population movement and the rise and functioning of pluralism within ethnically diverse societies. This Working Group seeks the broadest involvement of scholars across disciplines and nation-state specializations.
Convenors: David Gerber, History, 645-2181 x564, dagerber@buffalo.edu Teresa Miller, Law, 645-2391, tmiller@buffalo.edu
"Projecting Law": Law and New Media
Provides a forum in which faculty and graduate students can explore the role of media as a tool to illuminate, reflect upon, and project law and its broad impact upon society.
Convenors: Teresa Miller, Law, 645-2391, tmiller@buffalo.edu; James Milles, Law, 645-2089, jgmilles@buffalo.edu.
Racial Justice
Provides a forum for discussion of scholarship on race and inequality, with a particular interest in people’s interaction with racialized landscapes, spaces, and institutions. Building on the tradition of sociolegal studies of “law in action,” the group hopes that close examination of ground-level data will contribute to an understanding of the complex history and current policy regarding racial segregation and structural inequality.
Convenors: Carl Nightingale, American Studies, 645-2546 x 1470, cn6@buffalo.edu; Theresa Runstedtler, American Studies, 645-2546 x 1299, tr23@buffalo.edu
Theory
Provides a forum for discussion on moral, political, and legal theoretical matters relating to social structures, institutions, or the norms of interpersonal behavior.
Convenors: Guyora Binder, Law, 645-2673, gbinder@buffalo.edu Ken Ehrenberg, Philosophy, 645-2444x106, kenneth@buffalo.edu Ken Shockley, Philosophy, 645-2444x111, kes25@buffalo.edu
If you are interested in creating a new Working Group, please contact Laura Mangan (lmangan@buffalo.edu) or Rebecca French (rrfrench@buffalo.edu) at the Baldy Center.
Research Forums
Faculty Seminar Series
The Baldy Center Seminar Series continued in 2007-08 with two different themes: The Immigration Crucible and Legal Studies. All faculty, law, and graduate students are welcome to attend.
Conferences and Workshops
Scholarly conferences and research workshops have been a mainstay of Baldy activity. The conferences range from policy-oriented debates over community development, prisoners' disabilities, and family law, to more theoretical discussions of democratic and legal institutions, technology and development, or comparative diversity policies. More details on upcoming conferences and workshops is here.
Book Manuscript Workshops
The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy organizes intensive workshops focused on books about law or legal institutions, or any aspect of law and social policy authored by a UB faculty member. These workshops are designed to be stimulating interdisciplinary discussions that will provide helpful feedback to authors of a draft book manuscript. A small group of interested faculty, including one or two outside specialists, reads and discusses the manuscript with the author. Further details on upcoming and past workshops can be found here.
Visiting Speakers and Scholars
The Baldy Center hosts distinguished speakers as conference participants, as consultants, and as visiting scholars in connection with teaching and scholarship. Upcoming presentations by speakers and visiting scholars are available on the Events Calendar and information about past events is available on the Events Archive.
Faculty Publications
SSRN Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper Series
In 2005-06 the Baldy Center joined with the UB Law School and moved its working paper series on-line -- now called the Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper Series. It is hosted and distributed by SSRN (Social Science Research Network) and provides an international, interdisciplinary audience for the law-related work of UB faculty and visiting scholars.
- Visit the Buffalo Legal Studies
- For free subscription to the Buffalo Legal Studies series, visit http://www.ssrn.com and click on "Subscribe"
- Information on publishing papers in the Buffalo Legal Studies Series, can be downloaded here
An earlier sampling of Baldy faculty publications is available in the Baldy Center's Selected Publications 1995-1999 brochure which is available here 
The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy