16 January 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2015 Osgoode Forum - Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n Roll: Subversive Sites in the Law

May 15 - 16, 2015, Toronto, Ontario
Deadline for papers' submission: 31 January 2015

Change and stability, evolution and historical continuity, progress and constancy - these are conflicting demands that society and its members make of the law and legal institutions. Knowledge accumulates, past truths are shown to be false, and historical anomalies come to dominate the present. Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher stated that "everything changes and nothing stands still". If change is the only constant, how have, do, and should law and legal institutions respond, resist, react, accommodate, accept, or suppress social change and the agents of change?

OVERVIEW: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll is a credo associated with counter-culture, subversion, and resistance. Subversive sites of contestation exist not only because of constant change but also because of the failure of law to capture and accommodate individual realities, complexities, and varieties. There are many sites where individuals have reacted against dominant social views, perceptions, prescriptions, and propaganda. Some pursue activities, practices, and social arrangements which are illegal, disruptive, or unsanctioned - recent examples being Occupy Movements in light of the 2008 Financial Crisis; Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution; Aboriginal blockades and Idle No More movements in Canada; homeless encampments; and polygamist communities. Such resistance has resulted in positive social change as well as socially sanctioned violence, persecution, and prosecution. Others suppress desires and needs, hide actions, or suffer in obscurity. The prevailing social approach, action, or reaction may create barriers, thereby excluding the rebels, disrupters, outcasts, abnormals, dissenters, immorals, and perverts from full participation in society.

TOPICS: The 2015 Osgoode Forum takes a wide, inclusive, view of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll:
- Sex includes: sex; gender; sex selection; sexual abuse; sexual harassment; sex and gender bias/equity, sexuality; gender; sexual practices; sexual orientation; sex trade; and reproductive rights.
- Drugs include: illegal drugs; war on drugs; legalization, regulation, and decriminalization; religious or cultural uses; medicines; patenting; indigenous or traditional medicines; regulation of food and natural remedies; medical research funding; availability of life-saving drugs; and mandatory vaccinations.
- Rock 'n Roll includes: Counter culture, subversion, and resistance; Performers, consumers, and property ownership; censorship; sponsorship; cultural appropriation; intellectual property rights - and many other sites that include, but are not limited to: territoriality; immigration; displacement; land claims; natural and economic resources; and social and ecological conservation.

If you would like to know how your paper fits into the conference topic, email a short description to glsa@osgoode.yorku.ca

As we celebrate the 125th anniversary of Osgoode Hall Law School, the 2015 Forum will focus on change and continuity in the law, and will examine how law is shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces. We invite participants to reflect on subversive sites in the law in the past, the present, and into the future though proposals for papers, presentations, panels, and other interventions (including art-based and performance contributions) from Master's and Doctoral students, artists, and activists.

Osgoode is committed to the promotion of interdisciplinary scholarship addressing the nature and function of law and legal institutions, and the impact of law in our changing world. We are eager to accept proposals from a range of disciplines intersecting with law, including: cultural studies, criminology, political science, health studies, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, history, psychology, and philosophy.

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Please submit your abstracts in English to glsa@osgoode.yorku.ca

Abstracts or proposals should be between 250-500 words in length, and should include:
(i) your name,
(ii) title of the paper,
(iii) your organization or institution (if any), and
(iv) a list of up to five keywords.

The abstract submission deadline is EXTENDED to the end of the day January 31, 2015.

Successful applicants will be notified by February 7, 2015.

Final papers (maximum of 15,000 words) OR Drafts (1,000-1,500 words) must be submitted by May 9, 2015, to allow for dissemination so that forum participants can engage with authors and provide authors with feedback and comments.


Information about the conference site, accommodations, conference fees, and programming will be provided before the abstract submission deadline at http://glsa.osgoode.yorku.ca

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