Stacy Douglas
Associate Professor
| Phone: | 613-520-2600 x 8028 |
| Email: | stacy.douglas@carleton.ca |
| Office: | D582 LA (Loeb Building) |
| Twitter: | Follow |
Areas of Interest
- Legal and political theory
- Critical constitutionalism
- Critical theories of community
- Feminist, queer, and critical race theory
- Postcolonial legal studies
- Law and aesthetics
My interest in law and legal studies is fuelled by broad questions about theories of democracy, the role of the state, the relationship between government and governed, and processes of decolonisation. I approach these questions through empirical research as well as political and legal theory, especially that which intersects with poststructural, feminist, queer, and critical race traditions.
Current Research
Law’s Affective Attachments
The narrative device of awaking in a seemingly alternate legal universe is used widely in film and literature. This project explores this device and its resonances with a more general liberal story, especially deployed in activist campaigns concerning wrongful convictions and indefinite detention, about the possibility of encountering law’s violence as a distinct moment, rather than as everyday experience.
Museums, Democracy, and Dissent: An Analysis of the 2013 Partnership Between the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP)
Generously funded by the Carleton University Research Office and Mitacs Globalink Research Internships
The 2013 partnership between the CAPP and the CMH represents the continuation of a well-worn public relations strategy used by oil companies domestically and internationally to help bolster their social image. However, what may make this partnership significant is the current dwindling of formal sites of dissent in Canada’s juridical-politico apparatus. This project investigates the role that informal institutions such as museums can play in the maintenance of democracy as they have the potential to offer space for public dissent.
Editorial and Committee Activities
In addition to being on the Organizing Committee of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities (USA), Editorial Board Member for the Annual Review of Interdisciplinary Justice Research (Canada) and Counterpress (UK), as well as member of international networks such as the AHRC Regulating Time Network (UK), I am also Faculty supervisor of the Carleton University Journal of Law and Legal Studies, the Chet Mitchell Room, and regularly organize lectures and talks in the department and across the university.
Teaching
I teach LAWS 5000 Theories of Law & Social Transformation, LAWS 4100 Modern Legal Theory and LAWS 2502 Law, State, Citizen. These courses build on my interests in political and legal theory, as well as critical constitutionalism. In these classes students can expect to cover topics such as indigenous and anti-colonial resistance and critiques of sovereignty through feminist, queer, and poststructuralist theoretical approaches. My method of teaching emphasizes the importance of thorough reading in order to broaden intellectual horizons and this is reflected in the course structure. Students who take these courses will experience my passionate commitment to the study of law, not only as gleaned from the Charter or public law textbooks, but also as an urgent need to (re)think our being in the world.
I am cross-appointed to the Institute for Political Economy, the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies, and am a member of the Sexuality Studies Committee at Carleton. I was flattered to receive the Faculty of Public Affairs Teaching Excellence Award and the New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015.
Supervision
I supervise graduate students in the areas of law, culture, and the humanities, including socio-legal studies, philosophy and cultural studies.
| Student Name | Project Title | Degree Awarded |
| Sydney Jacklin | Imagining Law: Curated Narratives of Sexual Assault in The Ghomeshi Effect | Masters of Arts in Law and Legal Studies (Winter 2018) |
| Tiffany MacLellan | Painting Pasts and Futures: Transitional Justice, Museums, and Aesthetic Interruptions | Doctor of Philosophy in Law and Legal Studies (Fall 2017) |
| Garrett LeCoq | Potential Struggle Between the Legislative and Judicial Branches of Canada: A Contestational Approach to Interpreting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Through Bedford and PHS Community Services | Masters of Arts in Law and Legal Studies (Winter 2015) |
| Andrew Tompkins | Queering Canadian Homonationalism: Limited Approaches to Foreign Homophobia | Masters of Arts in Law and Legal Studies (Summer 2015) |
| Temma Pinkofsky | Unsettling Miss Chief and Buffalo Boy: Interrupting Canada’s Politics of Reconciliation | Masters of Arts in Law and Legal Studies (Summer 2015) |
| Danielle McKenzie | Refusing to go to the Market: Accounting for Women’s Work Beyond Neoliberal Policy-Making | Masters of Arts in Law and Legal Studies (Spring 2014) |
Selected Publications
Books
Douglas, Stacy. 2017. Curating Community: Museums, Constitutionalism, and the Taming of the Political. In: Law, Meaning and Violence Series. Eds. Austin Sarat and Martha Minow. University of Michigan Press. Forthcoming.
Articles in Refereed Journals
Douglas, Stacy. 2015. “Ubuntu Versus ubuntu: Finding a Philosophy of Justice Through Obligation”. Law and Critique. 26 (3), 305-312.
——–. 2015. “Museums As Constitutions: A Commentary on Constitutions and Constitution-Making”. Law, Culture, and the Humanities. Vol. 11 (3), October, 349-362.
——–. 2013. “The Time That Binds: Constitutionalism, Museums, And The Production Of Political Community”. Australian Feminist Law Journal. Vol. 38, June 2013.
——–. 2011. “Between Mo(nu)ments: Memorialising Past, Present and Future at the District Six Museum and Constitution Hill”. Law and Critique. Vol. 22, Issue 2. 177-187.
Douglas, Stacy, Suhraiya Jivraj, and Sarah Lamble. 2011. “Liabilities of Queer Anti-Racist Critique”. Feminist Legal Studies. Vol. 19, Issue 2. 107-118.
Douglas, Stacy. 2010. “On Defending Raw Nerve Books, or the Promise of Good Feeling”. Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action. Number Eleven. 81-94.
Edited Collections
Douglas, Stacy and Suzanne Lenon (Eds.). 2014. Law and Decolonization [Special Issue]. Canadian Journal of Law and Society. Vol. 29, Issue 2.
Douglas, Stacy, Suhraiya Jivraj, and Sarah Lamble (Eds.). 2011. Liabilities of Queer Anti-Racist Critique [Special Issue]. Feminist Legal Studies. Vol. 19, Issue 2.
Hunter, Rosemary, Stacy Douglas, Yvonne Rigby, Madhumanti Mukherjee, Gauri Nanayakkara, and Donatella Alessandrini (Eds.). 2011. feminists@law: an open access journal of feminist legal scholarship [Pilot Issue]. Kent Law School. Vol. 1, Issue 1, <http://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw/issue/current>.
Book Chapters
Douglas, Stacy and Daniel Matthews. 2018. “Sovereignty, Affect and Being-Bound”. Law, Obligation, Community. Daniel Matthews and Scott Veitch (Eds). London: Routledge, 157-178.
——–. 2018. “Law’s Transformative Power: The Mirror and its Frame”. Law and the Senses. London: University of Westminster Press, 125-158.
Douglas, Stacy. 2016. “Constitutions are Not Enough: the Museum as Law’s Counter-Archive”. Law’s Counter Archives. Stewart Motha and Honni van Rijswijk (Eds). London, Routledge. Forthcoming.
——–. 2016. “Sovereignty”. Keywords for Radicals. Clare O’Connor, Kelly Fritsch, and A.K. Thompson (Eds). Oakland: AK Press. Forthcoming.