Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2022 Lectures
Friday, February 18, 2022
1-2.30 pm via Zoom
Heather McLeod-Kilmurray | Professor | Co-Director at the Centre for Environmental Law & Global Sustainability | University of Ottawa
Topic: An Ecofeminist Critique of Canadian Environmental Law: The Case Study of Genetically Modified Foods
Abstract:
The nature of environmental harms clashes with traditional approaches to law. As feminist legal critics have pointed out, in a legal system primarily premised on liberal individualism and a capitalist economy, the law itself can embody and perpetuate ways of thinking and acting that lead to harm, rather than being a tool for resolving these problems. I will examine how an ecofeminist legal analysis of the law’s treatment of environmental harm can improve the effectiveness of environmental law. Ecofeminist analysis has argued that current approaches to environmentalism embody a patriarchal conceptual framework, including hierarchical thinking, a logic of domination, and normative dualisms such as the separation of humans from nature. A case study of GM foods will be used to tease out the various threads of legal reasoning (such as definitions of harm, regulation of technology and notions of rights and duties) and analyze them through a lens of ecofeminist legal analysis. This case study can be used to illustrate the need for an ecofeminist legal analysis to guide significant reform of many aspects of Canadian environmental law.
Bio:
Heather McLeod-Kilmurray is a Professor and Co-Director at the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability (CELGS) at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. Her research deals with food law including GMOs and industrial factory farming, toxic torts, environmental justice and the relationship between science and courts. She is co-author of The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts with Prof. Lynda Collins, and co-editor of Canadian Food Law and Policy with Profs. Nathalie Chalifour and Angela Lee. She is a former part-time member of the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal, and a Board member of the Canadian Association of Food Law and Policy.
Background readings:
1) McLeod-Kilmurray, Heather C., "An Ecofeminist Critique of Canadian Environmental Law: The Case Study of Genetically Modified Foods" (2008) 26 Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues 129-178.You may treat pages 129-149 as required and the remainder of the article as recommended (optional), as the presentation will cover the GM case study.
2) Lee, Angela, "An Ecofeminist Perspective on New Food Technologies" (2018) 5:1 Canadian Food Studies 63-89, Available at SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=3250205
Friday, February 11, 2022
1-2.30 pm via Zoom
Dr. Carys Craig, Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School
Topic: Copyright & Gender: Feminist Philosophies, Practices, and Proof
Abstract:
In this presentation, Professor Craig will draw the connections between copyright and gender from a feminist perspective. Her talk will cover feminist philosophies of authorship and entitlement; feminist practices of dialogic creativity and attribution; and empirical evidence about the gendered consequences of the copyright system
Bio:
Dr. Carys Craig is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where she is the Academic Director of the Professional LLM in Intellectual Property Law, Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, and recently served as Associate Dean (Research & Institutional Relations). A recipient of the Institute of International Education Outstanding Service Award and the President’s University-wide Teaching Award, Dr. Craig teaches and publishes in the areas of copyright, trademarks, law and technology, and feminist legal theory. She is the author of Copyright, Communication & Culture: Towards a Relational Theory of Copyright Law. Her award-winning scholarship has been cited with approval in several landmark copyright rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada. Dr. Craig holds an LL.B. (First Class Honours) from the University of Edinburgh, an LL.M. from Queen’s University, and an S.J.D. from the University of Toronto.
Background readings:
Carys Craig, “Copyright and Gender: Evidencing the Connections”, 21 for 2021 Report for CREATe, online at: https://www.create.ac.uk/blog/2021/12/17/21-for-2021-copyright-gender-evidencing-the-connections/
Additional Recommended (Optional): Carys J. Craig, “Feminist Aesthetics and Copyright Law: Genius, Value, and Gendered Visions of the Creative Self” in I. Calboli & S. Ragavan (eds.), Protecting and Promoting Diversity with Intellectual Property Law (Cambridge UP, 2015), online at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2464536; and/or Carys J. Craig, “Reconstructing the Author/Self: Some Feminist Lessons for Copyright Law”, 15(2) Am U J of Gender, Soc Pol’y & the Law 207 (2007), online at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1109&context=jgspl