The Global and International Studies Program would like to announce our third Contemporary Trends in Global and International Studies speaker, Dr. Mariana Valverde (Professor of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto), whose presentation “How Should We Study the Legal Regulation of Sexuality?: Reflection on the Persistence of Enlightenment Paradigms in Comparative Legal Analysis” will be given on Thursday, March 24th at 4:30pm in Rm 2017, Dunton Tower.
Abstract: Comparative studies of the legal regulation of sexuality usually identify a dominant pattern or trend. Some claim that progress, in the form of more human rights protections and more privacy rights, is marching onward, however unevenly, across the face of the globe. Some (e.g. many Nordic feminists) take the view that the world is dividing itself into two camps, one being increasingly secular and egalitarian and another ‘world’ being increasingly dominated by religious conservatism. A less popular but equally simplified view adopts the dystopian sensibilities of the Dworkin-McKinnon 1980s paradigm, in which any legal reforms appeared as clever ruses to perpetuate and disguise substantive gender oppression. All three of these ways of seeing and classifying legal change and legal reform are based on Enlightenment assumptions about ‘humanity’ that have long been displaced by thinkers from Foucault and Bruno Latour to postcolonial theory. The talk will explore possible tools we might use to move beyond Enlightenment paradigms as we proceed to document and analyze legal developments in the regulation of sexuality.