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Goose Bumps and “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life” in Sociolegal Studies: After Twenty-Five Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Felice J. Levine
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Abstract

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This article focuses on the emergence of sociolegal studies over the past twenty-five years through an analysis of the development of the Law and Society Association. The paper takes the view that this scholarly field is best understood from a broad-based, multidisciplinary perspective that includes, but does not privilege, legal scholarship. Also, the article argues that sociolegal studies has been pluralistic, self-reflective, and dynamic since its inception and that current critiques must be examined in light of this past. Three areas of contemporary concern—the centrality of law; the impact of policy, politics, and reform motives; and the nature of science—are assessed in terms of sociolegal studies specifically and social science inquiry more generally. Opportunities for growth and change are considered.

Type
Presidential Address
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , 1990 , pp. 7 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

This article was originally delivered as the Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association in Madison, Wisconsin, on June 9,1989. Except for footnotes, references, and a limited number of expansions, this article is essentially that speech and preserves in language and tone the conversation that I sought to engender with my colleagues on the occasion of LSA's twenty-fifth anniversary.

Many good friends and colleagues engaged in the debate and reflection that contributed to the formulation of this speech. Most importantly, I wish to thank Ronald M. Pipkin who met and valued the law and society "Trudy" in early spring of 1989. I am grateful also for the wisdom and good sense generously provided by Richard Lempert, Bliss Cartwright, Shari Seidman Diamond, Frank Munger, Barbara Yngvesson, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Stewart Macaulay, Bonney Sheahan, Katherine Rosich, and Beryl Radin.

These acknowledgments would be quite incomplete without my indicating a special note of gratitude to Trudy (Lily Tomlin) and her creator (Jane Wagner). With brilliant humor and penetrating insight, Wagner's play reinforced my own proclivities for searching with optimism. The brief excerpts from Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1987) are included here with permission of Jane Wagner and Harper & Row, Publishers.

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