A meeting of minds

"I love to lose myself in other men's minds," wrote the 19th century British essayist Charles Lamb. It is that philosophy that undergirds a movement in the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy to bring together scholars from many disciplines, including the Law School, and organizing them into working groups centered around particular investigative interests. The result is groups that have become forums for rich interdisciplinary exchanges, scholarly collaborations and intellectual ferment.

The working groups are open to any interested member of the University at Buffalo faculty. Their activities include informal meetings, presenting research work-in-progress, hosting visiting speakers and organizing research workshops.

"Each one of these groups is doing something completely different and interesting," says Professor Rebecca R. French, Baldy Center director."The research they are doing has great practical value. When I was in practice, I realized that the more you know about the world and about people, and the more you know about the context people are operating in, the better lawyer you are.

"It is imperative today for people to be flexible and able to adapt to new ways of thinking. Having students exposed to that is vital."

A brief tour of four well-established and productive working groups at the Baldy Center:

Law and Religion: "This is an exceedingly broad category, and it is wonderful because it is so open," French says. Participants in the working group look at the ways that legal systems have been shaped by religious systems, either homegrown or imported. Members of the group, which incorporates French's Law and Buddhism Project, helped to organize the 2006 visit to UB of the Dalai Lama, including a conference on Law, Buddhism and Social Change.

They also sponsored this spring's three-day conference "Re-Describing the Sacred/Secular Divide."

Law School members also include among others Associate Professors Winnifred Fallers Sullivan and Professors Stephanie Phillips. Sullivan's books include The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton University Press) and Prison Religion: Faith-Based Reform and the Constitution (Princeton University Press). Phillips says, "My focus is upon the juncture of law, religion and politics. These intersections are being rethought and refought in many places on the globe, including Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Afghanistan and the United States. To enrich the interdisciplinary aspect of this work, I am presently pursuing a master's degree in theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School."

Cultural Policy and Diplomacy: This working group "looks at the intersection of law, art, museums and politics," French says – "what the political dimensions are, how they are understood in different context and what the legal implications are."

Examples include the 2005 controversy over a Danish newspaper's publication of an editorial cartoon that depicted the Prophet Muhammad, igniting a furor in the Muslim world; and an incident in Stockholm when the Israeli ambassador disconnected the electricity to an exhibition of Palestinian art that he found objectionable.

The group is convened by Ruth Bereson, director of UB's Arts Management Program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Says French, "She puts together fascinating people and intriguing ideas."

Law, Place and Space: This working group looks at the intersection of law and geography – "thinking in a spatial way about how the law works," French explains. "It is very, very exciting." The group is planning a major two-day conference at UB in the fall, and in February sponsored a workshop called "The Hidden Places of Law: Exploring Legal Geographies."

Among the Law School participants is Associate Professor Irus Braverman, whose scholarship has addressed the laws surrounding trees and house demolitions in East Jerusalem. "My doctoral thesis focused on the politics of natural landscapes," Braverman says."In particular, this work examines the ideological uses of trees in both Israel/Palestine and in four North American cities, employing an ethnographic approach to examine the relations between law, natural landscapes and scientific technologies."

Also part of the group is Professor Errol Meidinger, who also serves as vice dean for research and faculty development.

Meidinger is the editor of Confronting Sustainability: Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Countries (Yale University Press), which looks at the emergence of a system for identifying well-managed forest land and how market choices affect the health of some of the world's most environmentally sensitive forests.

Law and Anthropology: "This was a hidden resource at UB that no one really knew about," French says. "Suddenly we realized how many people here are doing legal anthropology. There are five people just on our law faculty who have this interest."

French is one of them, as she has done extensive work on the Tibetan legal system. She is the author of The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet (Cornell University Press).

Also in this working group from the Law School is Associate Professor Mateo Tausig-Rubbo, who says: "My work on law and violence draws on anthropological methods and concepts. I am especially interested in forms of meaningful violence that affirm or transform legal categories." For example, Taussig-Rubbo has written about the concept of "outsourcing sacrifice" through the use of private military contractors.