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Engaged Research, “Goose Bumps,” and the Role of the Public Intellectual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Kitty Calavita
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Extract

As I was preparing my remarks for today, I thought about other LSA Presidential Addresses that had resonated with me, from Felice Levine's (1990) description of Lily Tomlin's “Trudy,” and the “goose bumps” that she (Felice) got from sociolegal studies, to Frank Munger's (2001) appeal to law and society scholars to do engaged research.

I realized that two themes I care passionately about were implicit in several of those previous talks, and that's why I had found them so compelling. They are the importance of asking the big questions (those that give us goose bumps), and the urgent need for a commitment to engaged research. I will argue today that there are in fact close links between these two themes. And, I will suggest that making these links explicit may help us address some of the dilemmas attached to the role of the engaged intellectual.

Type
Presidential Address and Commentaries
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 5 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Valerie Jenness, Kim Lane Scheppele, and Carroll Seron who gave me many helpful suggestions on an early draft of this address.

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