ClassCrits Working Group
The Baldy ClassCrits Working Group
focuses on building interest in interdisciplinary discussion, research,
and collaboration around questions of law and economic inequality
arising from within the tradition of critical legal scholarship
movements. We start
with the idea that, in the contemporary social and political context,
economic inequality is a growing problem nationally and internationally,
and that there is a need within sociolegal scholarship to reframe
some longstanding debates, assumptions, and approaches in light
of this reality. Furthermore, we want to develop a network
of sociolegal scholars who analyze economics in law as fundamentally
political, and as fundamentally tied to systemic status-based subordination. By
doing so, we aim to provide an alternative to the predominant discussions
of "law and economics" grounded in neoclassical economic
theory and its denial of "class." See below for expanded
description.
The ClassCrits Working Group sponsors presentations and discussions
around issues where class and law are the primary focus. These
events are often held in collaboration with other Baldy Working
Groups such as the Buffalo Seminar on Racial Justice. In
addition, the ClassCrits Reading Group meets regularly to provide
a forum for in-depth discussion.
Convenors
- Martha McCluskey, Law
- 645-2326 mcclusk@buffalo.edu
- Athena Mutua, Law
- 645-2873 admutua@buffalo.edu (Reading
Group organizer)
Calendar for 2006-07
- Friday, October 20, 2006
- Reading Group discussion on "The Color of Wealth:
The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide" by
Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, and Betsy
Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer (2006).
Discussion with co-author, Rose Brewer, African
American Studies, University of Minnesota. A joint meeting
of the Baldy Center ClassCrits and Racial Justice working groups.
- September 22, 2006
- Reading Group discussion on Armed Madhouse:
Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China
Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to
Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from
the Front Lines of the Class War by Greg
Palast (2006).
- Monday, August 7, 2006
- Reading Group discussion on "Industrial
Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt, 1969-1984" by Steven
High (2003)
Calendar for 2005-06
  
- Friday, June 9, 12:00 - 2:00 pm, 706 O'Brian Hall (note new
time)
- Reading Group discussion of Jeff
Faux's 2006 book, The Global Class War: How America's
Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future -- and What it Will Take to
Win it Back.
- Tuesday, May 9, 12:00 - 2:00 pm, Law Library Looseleaf Room
- Reading Group discussion of Judith Stein’s 1998
book, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy,
and the Decline of Liberalism
- Friday, March 31, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, Law Library Looseleaf
Room
- Reading Group discussion of Guy Stuart's 2003
book, Discriminating Risk: The U.S. Mortgage Lending Industry
in the Twentieth Century
- Friday, March 3, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, Law Library Looseleaf Room
- Reading Group discussion of three readings (available from
the Baldy Center)
1. New York Times "Class Matters" series,
first article, May 15, 2005
2. Chap. 1 of R. Perrucci & E.
Wysong’s 1999 book, The New Class Society
3. John Miller (Jan/Feb 2006) “What’s
Good for Wal-Mart ...,” Dollars & Sense.
Events
- Friday, October 20, 7:15 pm, 378 Crescent Ave., Buffalo (home
of Martha McCluskey and Carl Nightingale)
- ClassCrits and Racial Justice Seminar joint discussion and
light dinner Rose Brewer, African American Studies, University
of Minnesota,
will discuss her co-authored book "The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the
U.S. Racial Wealth Divide"
- Friday, April 7, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm, 10 O'Brian Hall
- Buffalo Seminar on Racial Justice Workshop on "Overcoming Racial
Discrimination in Housing, Credit, and Urban Policy" with Guy
Stuart, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University;
Audrey McFarlane, University of Baltimore School of Law; and
Gregory Squires, George Washington University, Sociology. Cosponsored
by the ClassCrits Working Group
- January 25-26, 2007
- Baldy Center Workshop "ClassCrits: Toward a Critical Legal
Analysis of Economic Inequality" Organizers: Martha
McCluskey,
UB Law, and Athena Mutua, UB Law
Other Events of Interest
-
Saturday, February 25, 7:00 - 10:00 pm
- Reception and talk by Chesa Boudin at Professor
Sue Mangold's home, 144 South Cayuga Road, Williamsville, NY
14221. Mr. Boudin is on a national book signing and discussion
tour regarding his new book, The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions,
100 Answers. He is also co-author of Letters from Young Activists:
Today's Rebels Speak Out (2005). He has two book signings scheduled:
Saturday, February 25, at
3:00 pm, at Rust Belt Books, 202 Allen Street; and Sunday, February
26, at 3:00 pm, at Talking Leaves, 951 Elmwood Avenue.
- Wednesday, March 1, 6:00 film, 8:00 discussion, 108 O’Brian
- Film showing and discussion of "Crash" Organized by the Buffalo
Seminar on Racial Justice.
- Tuesday, March 28, 9:00 am - 4:30 pm (venue tba)
- Conference on Women and Work: Strategies for Leadership and
Progress organized by Nurses United, CWA, and Cornell School
of Industrial and Labor Relations, contact Ruth Meyerowitz, UB
American Studies, for details at 645-2546 x 12 or rsm@buffalo.edu
Calendar for Fall 2005
- December 6, 2005
- Film and Discussion of "Wal-Mart:
The High Cost of the Low Price." Discussion leaders: James
Atleson, UB Law, and Dianne
Avery, UB Law. Organized by the ClassCrits Working
Group.
Description
The name "ClassCrits" aims to place this project within
the tradition of critical legal scholarship movements, such as
critical legal studies, critical feminist theory, critical race
theory, LatCrits, and queer theory. Several of these overlapping
perspectives have begun to foster growing interest among sociolegal
scholars in economic class and economic structures as a fundamental
and fundamentally intersecting issue related to other forms of
subordination (like race, gender, sexual orientation). Economic
inequality and law is an emerging area of national and international
scholarly interest. Faculty affiliated with the Baldy Center
have a strong history of interdisciplinary work on questions of
poverty and urban economic development and UB Law School already
has strength in critical legal scholarship as well as in labor
and financial law. We think, therefore, that the time is
right for a ClassCrits Working Group.
Participants in the ClassCrits Working Group will explore the
challenges and complications involved in bringing class analysis
together with analysis of other forms of subordination. How
might earlier work on class and economics in law be advanced by
bringing to that analysis the insights, concepts, and data developed
by critical feminism and critical race theory, for example? How
might a focus on class contribute to the theoretical debates within
critical theory, such as how to address legal and societal subordination
without "essentializing" identities, and how to theorize
the relationship between subordinated identity and institutionalized
structures of subordination?
Baldy Center For Law & Social Policy
511 O'Brian Hall, University at Buffalo Law School
Buffalo, NY 14260
716.645.2102
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