1 credit
Course description:
The Feminist Legal Studies Workshop is designed to enable students to work closely with faculty in analyzing and discussing with leading feminist theorists and scholars visiting Queen’s Faculty the topics of the speakers’ papers.
The Feminist Legal Studies Workshop course is offered for one course credit per term. In the fall term of 2015, it is designated as Law 692; in the winter term of 2016 it is designated as Law 693. Students may enroll for one credit in the fall term, or for one credit in the winter term, or for a total of two credits in both terms combined. This course can also be combined with an ISP for students who may wish to carry out in-depth independent supervised work in relation to one or more of the areas discussed in this workshop.
Scheduling details:
The workshop speakers will typically be scheduled for the regular visitor slots on Mondays and Fridays, which run from 1 to 2:30 pm, and one or two additional meetings per term will be scheduled around everyone’s class and other commitments. Speaker dates and locations are listed below.
Nature, mode, and content of evaluation of student participation:
Students will attend all the speakers events (4/term or all 7/all year), will prepare advance reading and two advance questions for each speaker in each term, plus 1-2 pages of briefing notes after each session (60% of course credit), will participate in the discussion at the speakers visit (10% of course credit), and will prepare a short term paper of approximately 10-12 pages on a topic that relates to any one of the speakers events (30% of course credit). To be taught by Profs. Amani and Lahey.
Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2022 Lectures
Friday, September 23, 2022
1-2.30 pm
Room 201
Lindsay Borrows | Assistant Professor | Queen's Law
Topic: A Tribute to Jean Borrows: Learning, Living and Teaching Anishinaabe Law
Abstract:
Jean Borrows has carried many titles over her long lifetime including firewood chopper, angler, hat-shop owner, Indian Day School student, real estate agent, member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, professor of Anishinaabe law, mother and N’okomis (my grandmother), to name a few. The contribution of Jean Borrows to the Canadian legal academy helps define, and potentially expand, the question: what is the Canadian legal academy? Indigenous legal orders have always and continue to form and inform the Canadian legal landscape in dynamic ways, yet there are challenges to recognizing community-educated and community-based “professors” of Indigenous law.
Through sharing select stories of Jean Borrows’ fascinating life, my paper makes the case that the Canadian legal academy is not just Law Society accredited law faculties, but sites of Indigenous legal education are also an essential part of the academy. I aim to show how Jean’s varied responsibilities, experiences and teachers throughout her life gave her a type of legal knowledge that led her to become an influential educator of Anishinaabe law, including as an Elder at the Anishinaabe Law Camps hosted regularly in her community since 2014 for Osgoode Hall and University of Toronto law students.
Bio:
Lindsay Keegitah Borrows (Chippewas of Nawash First Nation) is a new Assistant Professor at Queen’s Law. Previously she was a lawyer at the Indigenous Law Research Unit (University of Victoria Faculty of Law) and at West Coast Environmental Law. Her work supports Indigenous communities to revitalize their laws for application in contemporary contexts. She has worked with various Indigenous legal orders including Anishinaabe, Haíɫzaqv, Māori, Mi’kmaq, nuučaan̓uł, St’át’imc, Denezhu, and Tsilhqot’in. Since 2014 she has co-facilitated over a dozen land-based Anishinaabe Law Camps for learners from various law schools across Ontario.
Background readings:
TBD
Monday, October 24, 2022
1-2.30 pm
Room 201
Sonia Lawrence | Associate Professor | Osgoode Hall Law School
Topic: Section 15 Charter Equality Rights Update
Abstract:
TBD
Bio:
TBD
Background readings:
TBD
Monday, October 31, 2022
1-2.30 pm
Room TBD
Seána Glennon | Sutherland School of Law Doctoral Scholar | University College Dublin
Topic: Lessons from Ireland on the Implications of a Constitutional Right to Life of the Unborn and the Role of Citizen Deliberation in Ireland's Watershed Abortion Referendum
Abstract:
Ireland was the first country in the world to constitutionally enshrine by referendum a right to life for the unborn. The Eighth Amendment was inserted into the Constitution in 1983 and operated as a near-blanket constitutional ban on abortion. The historic referendum in 2018 to remove the Eighth Amendment made international headlines. The liberalisation of the law was a watershed moment in Irish history and demonstrated a sea change in attitude toward the subject of abortion, over the course of a generation, on the part of both the public and the political establishment.
In this talk, I will consider the consequences for women in Ireland for almost three decades of the interpretation of the Supreme Court of the Eighth Amendment, and will explore the role of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly in the radical reform of the law. As we witness the erosion of reproductive rights in the US, Ireland’s experience serves as a grave lesson on the real-world implications of endowing a foetus with the same rights as the person carrying it.
Bio:
Seána Glennon is a doctoral candidate at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, researching in the areas of constitutional law and deliberative democracy. Seána is recipient of the 2019 UCD Sutherland School of Law doctoral scholarship, and is currently Chief Outreach Officer at UCD’s Centre for Constitutional Studies. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the role of citizen deliberation in legal and constitutional reform processes, and examines in particular the role of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly in the radical reform of Ireland’s abortion law. She holds a Bachelors in Law from Trinity College, Dublin and a Masters in Law from the University of Toronto, Canada.
Prior to embarking on a career in academia, Seána practised as a lawyer for eight years in a large international law firm in Dublin, specialising in public and administrative law. Seána is qualified as a lawyer in Ireland, England and Wales and is a member of the Law Society of Ireland.
Seána is also a freelance opinion writer and radio contributor, whose work regularly appears in national print media in Ireland, including the Irish Times, the Business Post and the Journal.
Background readings:
Seána Glennon, ‘Ireland’s past paints a bleak picture for America’s future on abortion rights’, The Business Post (22 May 2022)., https://www.businesspost.ie/analysis-opinion/seana-glennon-irelands-past-paints-a-bleak-picture-for-americas-future-on-abortion-rights/