Events-at-a-Glance

Aerial photo of UB North Campus, December 2021. Photographer: Douglas Levere.

Aerial photo of UB North Campus. Lockwood LIbrary and Clemens Hall are centered. Photographer: Douglas Levere.

The Baldy Center sponsors and co-sponsors many events each year that enliven the dialogue about law and society in the University. Current events are planned in accordance with UB's related protocols for on-campus activities.

Upcoming Events-at-a-Glance

Presentations are typically 90-minutes in duration. 
Events subject to change.

Spring 2025 Events-at-a-Glance

JANUARY 30, 2025 WORKSHOP
Higher Expectations: Surviving and Transforming Academia
Registration
Thursday, 509 O'Brian Hall
12:00 to 3:30pm; Book talk, Q&A, roundtable discussion, and brainstorming sessions with participants, faculty, staff and students. 
Organizer: Trina Hamilton

FEBRUARY 3, 2025 INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)

FEBRUARY 21, 2025  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Joni Hersch (Vanderbilt University)
Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom, here.

MARCH 3, 2025 INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)

MARCH 7, 2025 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Amna Akbar (Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law)

Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom, here.

MARCH 29, 2025 CONFERENCE
Social Transformations and Urban Planning Transitions in China
Organized by Xuanyi Nie, Darwin Martin House

APRIL 4, 2025 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Stephanie Plamondon (BYU Law)

Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom, here.

APRIL 7, 2025 INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)

APRIL 11, 2025 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Jeremy Kessler (Columbia Law School)
Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom, here.

APRIL 2025 CONFERENCE
Alison Des Forges International Symposium
Details tba.

MAY 5, 2025 INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)

MAY 23, 2025 CONFERENCE
Mapping Scholarly Communications in Law Libraries
Organized by John Beatty
Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall
Details tba.

May 28 to 31, 2025 CONFERENCE
25th Biennial Meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America
Organized by Walter Hakala
Details tba.

JUNE 6 and 7, 2025 CONFERENCE
The Right to Truth

Organized by Jorge Fabra-Zamora
509 O’Brian Hall
Details tba.

FIRST MONDAYS

SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)

  • February 3, 2025
  • March 3, 2025
  • April 7, 2025
  • May 5. 2025

509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Noon Reception
12:30 to 1:30pm Presentation

Related Events

Past Event Listings

PAST EVENTS AT-A-GLANCE

FALL 2024

SEPTEMBER 6, 2024  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER 
Kate Cronin Furman (University College London)
Documentation and Denial: The Fight Over Evidence of Mass Atrocities
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation

SEPTEMBER 6, 2024  CO-SPONSORED  SPEAKER 
Philip J. Stern (Duke University)
Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Presentation
Hosted by the Department of History

SEPTEMBER 9, 2024 INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)
Monday, Noon; 509 O’Brian Hall

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
David Pozen (Columbia Law School)
Disconsents by Daryl Levinson and David Pozen
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024 
Jacob Eisler (Florida State University)
The Rise of Populist Primacy
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation

OCTOBER 7, 2024  INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)
Monday, Noon; 509 O’Brian Hall

OCTOBER 31, 2024  FEATURED SPEAKER
Pasha L. Hsieh (Yong Pung How School of Law)
U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy: Shaping Trade Agreements with ASEAN and Taiwan
Access the advance paper here.
Thursday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00, Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom.

NOVEMBER 1, 2024  FEATURED SPEAKER
Werner Reutter (Humboldt University)
The Baldy Center Fellow (2018)
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Noon Reception; 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Presentation
Option to attend via Zoom registration.

NOVEMBER 4, 2024  INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES
Prison and Incarceration Research (PAIR)
Access the advance paper.
Monday, Noon; 509 O’Brian Hall

NOVEMBER 7, 2024  Panel Discussion
70th Anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education
Thursday, 5:00-7:30 p.m.
Off-Campus: William-Emslie Family YMCA
585 William Street, Buffalo, NY, 14206

DECEMBER 2, 2024  PAIR INTERDISCIPLINARY SPEAKER SERIES (PAIR)
Monday, Noon; 509 O’Brian Hall
Andrea J. Pitts (Comparative Literature & Global Gender and Sexuality Studies) “Health Empires Behind Bars: Carceral Humanism and the Rise of Correctional Medicine" 
ACCESS THE ADVANCE PAPER

SUMMER 2024

JUNE 27 - 29, 2024  CONFERENCE
8th Biennial Meeting of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society
Faculty Organizer: David Herzberg

SPRING 2024

FEBRUARY 23, 2024 FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION DEADLINE
Learn more about applying for a fellowship.

MARCH 1, 2024  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS
Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton)
John Morijn (Groningen and Princeton)
Money for Nothing?
Freezing EU Funds to Generate Compliance with EU Values
Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall

MARCH 13, 2024  NYHS TALK
Samantha Barbas, Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan at 60
Wednesday, 6:30 pm
New-York Historical Society
70 Central Park West, New York

MARCH 25, 2024  SPEAKER 
Noon, Monday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Jiří Přibáň (Cardiff) Constitutional populism and explosive communities: Identity politics and authenticity in a global society.

MARCH 25, 2024  BOOK TALK 
4:00 p.m., Monday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Paul Linden-Retek (School of Law) Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (Oxford UP, 2023)

MARCH 27, 2024 CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
Malini Ranganathan (American University) The Long Climate Crisis: Global Political Ecologies of Caste, Race, and Labor Migration
3:15 p.m. Wednesday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Co-sponsored by UB Critical Ecologies Research Collaborative and UB Geography Colloquia.

MARCH 29, 2024 SPEAKER
Melissa Crouch (The Baldy Center Fellow)
Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall

MARCH 29, 2024 GRANT PROPOSAL DEADLINE
CONFERENCES AND RESEARCH Learn more.

APRIL 2 & 3, 2024 CO-SPONSORED EVENTS
Annelise Orleck (Dartmouth)
Gender Institute Lecture Series
Film Screening and Author Q&A

APRIL 4 & 5, 2024  CO-SPONSORED CONFERENCE
Jagiellonian University and the University at Buffalo:
Institutional partners for three decades
Thursday, Buffalo Room or tba
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Facilitator: John Wood (UB International Education)

APRIL 10, 2024 CO-SPONSORED EVENT
AsiaTalks Lecture: Eujin Park (Stanford)
Noon, Wednesday, 509 O'Brian Hall
Event co-sponsored by Asia Research Institute and Educational Leadership and Policy Department in GSE

APRIL 12, 2024  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER 
Umut Özsu (Carleton University, Ottawa)
Author of Completing Humanity The International Law of Decolonization, 1960-8 (Cambridge 2023)
Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall

APRIL 16, 2024 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
Alison Des Forges International Symposium
Organizer: Alison Des Forges Memorial Committee

APRIL 19, 2024  WORKSHOP
Resilience Before The Disaster Arrives: Deploying Inter-University Multisectoral Convergent Collaboration Toward a New Disaster Preparation and Response Ethic.
Faculty organizer: Kim Diana Connolly.

APRIL 26, 2024  DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Michelle Phelps (Author)
Author of The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America. Princeton UP, 2024. 
Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall

MAY 8, 2024 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
James Elliott (Rice)
How and Why Social Inequities Matter for Climate Resilience
Noon; 509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Event hosted by UB RENEW.

MAY 17 - 18, 2024  CONFERENCE
Transnational Legal and Political Theory
Faculty Organizer: Jorge Fabra Zamora

FALL 2023

AUGUST 25, 2023  WEBINAR
Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan by Samantha Barbas
Friday, 12:30p.m. Online via Zoom

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 LOC WEBINAR
Thursday, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. via Zoom
The Library of Congress presents Constitution Day 2023, featuring Samantha Barbas

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023 SPEAKER
Cynthia Estlund (NYU LAW)
“Democratic Contestation Rights for the Workplaces We Have” 
Friday, 12:30p.m

SEPTEMBER 29 & 30, 2023 CONFERENCE
Buddhism and Law: Third International Conference

OCTOBER 6, 2023  SPEAKER
Alan W. Clarke, The Baldy Center Senior Fellow
“North American Genocides: Indigenous Nations, Settler Colonialism, and International Law”
Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall|
12:15 p.m. Reception; 12:30 p.m. Lecture

OCTOBER 20 & 21, 2023 CONFERENCE
Reproductive Justice and Health Equities Post-Dobbs: a Legal, Medical, Community Dialogue
Co-Organizer: Lucinda Finley

OCTOBER 24, 2023  SPEAKER
Mihreteab Taye (UB School of Law)
“Vulnerability of Academic Freedom in Countries under Violent Conflict”
Tuesday, 509 O'Brian Hall
3:00 p.m. Lecture

NOVEMBER 3, 2023 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Claire Priest (Yale Law)
"From Invasion to Formalization: Peruvian Origins of Property Titling Movement"
Noon, Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall

NOVEMBER 9, 2023, RECEPTION AND FILM SCREENING
TERI MILLER: Looking Back, Moving Forward
5:30, Reception. 7:00, Film screening
Burchfield Penney Art Center
Also see The Baldy Center Legacy Conference, 40 Years After the Attica Uprising: Looking Back, Moving Forward.


NOVEMBER 10 to 12, 2023 CONFERENCE  
Critical (Legal) Collective's Inaugural Convening
“Organizing for Democracy and Liberation: The Right to Learn, The Right to Teach, The Right to Thrive”.

NOVEMBER 17, 2023 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Tao Dumas (TCNJ Politcal Science)
“Anyone but the Lawyer: Race, Gender, and Misattribution in the Legal Profession”
Noon, Friday, 509 O’Brian Hall

NOVEMBER 30, DECEMBER 1, 2023  CONFERENCE
"Beyond Precarity: Fashioning Prosperous, Humane and Sustainable Societies in the Age of Financialization and Global Warming"
Via Zoom from Amiens, France
Organizer: Charles Whalen (baldycenter@buffalo.edu)
 

DECEMBER 1, 2023  SPEAKER
Greta LaFleur, The Baldy Center Mid-career Fellow
"Sex Panics and Risk Metrics: Law, Propensity, and the History of Sexuality"
Noon, Friday, 509 O'Brian Hall

SPRING 2023

MAY 26 and 27, 2023 — THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCE
Critical Encounters with Habermas' legal theory
Organized by Matthew Dimick (UB School of Law),  John Abromeit (Buffalo State College), and Paul Linden-Retek (UB School of Law).

APRIL 5, 2023 — Co-Sponsored Speaker
Dr. Mary Frances Berry (University of Pennsylvania)
History Teaches Us to Resist:
Struggles and Progress in Challenging Times

Learn more.

APRIL 6, 2023 — Co-Sponsored Speaker
Michael Levien (Johns Hopkins University)
A Green New Deal in Red States?
Towards a Sociology of Energy Transition

Hybrid event.

APRIL 20, 2023 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
Interventions in Social Reproduction
Visit the Gender Institute website for details.

APRIL 21, 2023 — UB FACULTY SPEAKER
Veronica L. Horowitz  (Sociology) Incarceration during the COVID-19 Pandemic:
Compounding the Pains of Imprisonment. 

APRIL 24 to 27, 2023 — CO-SPONSORED SYMPOSIUM
Queer and Feminist Yugoslav Diaspora:
Art, Film, and Activism
Host: UB Dept. of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies

APRIL 26, 2023 — CO-SPONSORED SYMPOSIUM
"The Russo—Ukrainian War: Achievements and Limitations of Today’s International System."
Organizer: Alison Des Forges Memorial Committee

APRIL 28, 2023 — THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCE
While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy
in a Time of Change
 by John Henry Schlegel 
509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Friday, 9:30 am to 4:00 pm
Organized by Bert Westbrook and Amanda Benzin.

MAY 3, 2023 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
Gender Institute presents Irus Braverman
509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus
Wednesday, 3:30 - 5:00pm (ET)
509 O'Brian Hall & via Zoom

May 5, 2023 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
Presented by UB Gender Institute
Celene Reynolds, PhD  (Baldy Center Postdoctoral Fellow)
Repurposing Title IX: How Sexual Harassment Became Sex Discrimination In American Higher Education

FALL 2022

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 — GENDER INSTITUTE SPEAKER
Silvia Federici (Social Reproduction Theory)

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022 — GUEST SPEAKER
Ewa Górska,  (Jagiellonian University)

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022 — GENDER INSTITUTE SPEAKER
Katja Praznik  (UB Arts Management)
Register via Gender Institute.

OCTOBER 7, 2022 — DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
Paul W. Kahn (Yale Law School)
"To be Governed by a Text"
Hybrid event.

OCTOBER 13, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
Matthew T. Huber (Syracuse University)
Hybrid event.

OCTOBER 27, 2022 — GENDER INSTITUTE SPEAKER
Premilla Nadasen (Columbia University)
Register via Gender Institute.

OCTOBER 28 & 29, 2022 — CONFERENCE
Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50
Organizer: Gwynn Thomas, PhD

OCTOBER 28 & 29, 2022 — THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCE
The State of Democracy and Rise of Autocracy in view of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Organizers: Barbara Wejnert and James Gardner
Hybrid event.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022 — GUEST SPEAKER
Pornpen Khongkachonkiet (Director, Cross Cultural Foundation, Bangkok)  "A new law to prevent torture and enforced disappearances in Thailand"

DECEMBER 9, 2022 — SENIOR FELLOW
Nick Cheesman (Senior Fellow, The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy)
"A Political Concept of Torture."

SUMMER 2022

JUNE 9 & 10, 2022 — HYBRID WORKSHOP 
Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference
Organizer: Martha T. McCluskey, in collaboration with the Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and Law (APPEAL)

SPRING 2022

FEBRUARY 18, 2022 — DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
12:00pm ET; 509 O’Brian Hall and via Zoom.
Nicole Fox (California State University Sacramento)
After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda
Co-sponsored with Department of Sociology

MARCH 10, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
4:00pm ET;  509 O’Brian Hall and via Zoom.
HUMANITIES INSTITUTE
Mical Raz, PhD, “Fixing Parents or Fixing Poverty? Lessons from Child Welfare Policy History”

MARCH 11, 2022 — DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
12:30pm ET;  509 O’Brian Hall and via Zoom.
Anna Lvovsky (Harvard Law School)
The Double Lives of Police Professionalism

APRIL 1, 2022 — DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
12:30pm ET;  509 O’Brian Hall and via Zoom.
Michael J. Nelson (Pennsylvania State University)
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary
Co-sponsored by UB Department of Political Science

APRIL 7, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium
9:00am to 4:00pm ET;  10 Capen Hall and via Zoom.
Today's Socialism and Human Rights
Contact:  dussourd@buffalo.edu

APRIL 15, 2022 — DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER
12:30pm ET; Virtual (only) via Zoom.
Nate Holdren (Drake University)
Workplace injury, social murder, and law

APRIL 22 and 23, 2022 — CONFERENCE WEBINAR
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice
Co-organizer: Christopher Mele; co-sponsored by Swarthmore College.

APRIL 22, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
280 Park Hal, 11:00am to 12:30pm
Lenni Bensen (New York Law School)
Understanding Children Who Migrate Alone: U.S. Law and Policy

APRIL 26, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER
7 Capen Hall, 3:00pm to 4:30pm and via Zoom
David Hernández (Mount Holyoke College)
Whiplashed: Refugees, Detention and the "Trump Era"

APRIL 29 and 30, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia

MAY 10, 2022 — CO-SPONSORED EVENT
1:00 to 4:00pm ET;  509 O’Brian Hall and via Zoom
DSSN Symposium: Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Digital Archives

FALL 2021

OCTOBER 25, 2021 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER 
Ehlimana Memisevic (Fulbright Scholar, Vanderbilt University)
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Global Engagement (ISGE), School of Social Work.

NOVEMBER 3, 2021 — CO-SPONSORED SPEAKER 
WANG FENG (UC Irvine)
Wednesday, 12:00 p.m.
509 O’Brian Hall Conference Center, UB North Campus
The event is co-sponsored UB Confucius Institute, The Baldy Center, and CAS Department of Sociology 

NOVEMBER 11 & 12, 2021 — WORKSHOP
Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene
Organized by Marion Werner, UB Associate Professor of Geography. 

DECEMBER 3, 2021, 12:00 p.m. (noon)
BOOK MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP (VIRTUAL)
Moral Debt in Modern America, Daniel Platt, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, Baldy Center Postdoctoral Fellow in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies 2019-2021.

SUMMER 2021

JUNE 25, 2021 — ONLINE WORKSHOP
Marx, Law, and the Administrative State
Thursday, Friday, Saturday (time tba)
Organized by Matthew Dimick, Professor, UB School of Law

SPRING 2021

MARCH 5, 2021 — ONLINE BOOK TALK
Yesterday's Monsters, The Manson Family Cases and the Illusion of Parole by Hadar Aviram
Event co-sponsored by UB Department of Sociology.

MARCH 11, 2021 — ONLINE BOOK TALK
From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century, book talk by co-authors William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen
Sponsored by UB Center for Diversity Innovation.
Co-sponsored by The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, and UB Office of Inclusive Excellence.

APRIL 14, 15, 16, 2021 — VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
Medical Posthumanities: Governing Health Beyond the Human
Related podcast is here.

APRIL 30, 2021 — VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM
Alison Des Forges International Virtual Symposium
COVID-19: Human Rights and International Cooperation
Related podcast is here.