York Law School is delighted to be hosting the Socio-Legal Studies Association 2013 conference. Over the past 21 years, the annual SLSA conference has expanded to become one of the most prestigious international events in socio-legal studies. Last year’s conference at Leicester De Montfort University attracted 300 delegates from around 25 different countries. Delegates came from a variety of backgrounds: academic law; social science disciplines; criminology; and policy makers. The conference prides itself on welcoming delegates and speakers at all stages of their professional career, from early career researchers through to the most eminent scholars in their field. Many enduring scholarly connections have been established at the SLSA conference over the years.
This year we are particularly pleased to announce that our plenary speaker will be Lady Hale, Justice of the Supreme Court who will be speaking to the question “Should judges be socio-legal scholars?”
As well as the usual wide range of papers we are also holding for the first time a poster competition for Post Graduate students. For those who want an alternative intellectual stimulation there will be a book group. The chosen book is: The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. The conference dinner will take place at the National Railway Museum.
SLSA 2013 will take place in the new Law and Management Building which is part of the £750 million development of the University on the Heslington East campus. The University is located just a short distance from the historic city of York, in beautiful parkland. A regular bus service runs from York station.
City Walk - For those arriving early you may be interested in seeing what York has to offer. Please see the City Walk tab below which has the details of our city walk on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.
We are now closed for bookings.
We are still accepting posters from post graduate students for the poster competition. If you would like to present a poster, please submit a title and a brief written abstract of your research, as you would for a paper, to Kathryn Wright at Kathryn.wright@york.ac.uk by Monday March 11 2013. You do not need to submit a provisional image of your poster at this stage.
For more information please see the PG Poster Competition tab.
We are also running a book group that will take place in the last session on the afternoon of Tuesday, 26 March. This will be run by Daniel Monk. The chosen book is: The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
Listening to papers can be tiring and a book reading provides a very different form of engagement between participants. If you would like to read the book and take part in the discussion please let Daniel know by e-mailing him at d.monk@bbk.ac.uk
This year we are running for the first time a poster competition for post graduate students. We are particularly keen for students in the ESRC doctoral training centres to use this as an opportunity to get together and find out about each other’s work.
Posters are an established feature of conferences in other disciplines and are becoming increasingly common at legal events, particularly in the US.
Posters allow you to present the core aspects of your research in a central location within a conference and are suitable for doctrinal, theoretical and empirical projects. You can be at any stage of your research as a poster can be used to convey not just finding, but also your research questions and background context and law. Here is an example of a poster from a recent conference held at Queen Mary University.
You will be able to put your poster on display any time on Tuesday March 26, The posters will be judged on March 27 and the winners announced at the conference dinner.
WHY PRESENT A POSTER?
The posters will be on display throughout the conference in the Problem Based Learning area in the Law and Management Building. The idea is that you will stand with your poster during the breaks so that you can discuss your research in more detail with interested participants. Your poster is a means for you to attract the interest of participants and to provoke in-depth discussion with them on a one-to-one basis. As such, posters not only provide you with an effective means of disseminating your research widely amongst the academic community but they also provide an excellent means of networking with your colleagues and of meeting new people.
The title of your poster will be advertised in the conference programme, which is published on the SLSA website in advance of the conference and in hard copy at the conference. A prize will be awarded for the best poster.
RESPONDING TO THE CALL
If you would like to present a poster, please submit a title and a brief written abstract of your research, as you would for a paper, to Kathryn Wright at Kathryn.wright@york.ac.uk by Monday March 11 2013. You do not need to submit a provisional image of your poster at this stage.
Please note that those presenting a poster will need to book and pay the relevant post graduate rate for attending the conference in the same way as those presenting papers. You do not need to be an SLSA member to present a poster though membership attracts a preferential conference rate.
If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact Kathryn by e-mail.
DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE POSTER
Your poster should be printed on A1 paper and laminated. As your poster is your means of attracting participants' interest and attention, it is crucial for you to adopt an effective design. It should be readable from a distance of around 2 metres. It should also feature a strong title and be clear and uncluttered. Avoid the temptation to cram your poster with all of the details you would normally convey in a paper. Remember, the idea is to draw people in and to encourage one-to-one discussion of the detail. As such, posters should contain:
Here are a few more examples of posters presented at legal conferences in the UK and the US:
Example 2
Example 3
http://www.aals.org/am2007/posters.html
http://www.aals.org/am2008/posters.html
As you can see, presenters adopt a variety of different approaches. They key is to finding the approach best suited to your individual research project. There are a large number of websites offering guidance on poster design, some containing templates which you may wish to use. Here are some of the most useful websites we have found:
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/#Note0
http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/resources-template.php?id=52
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/tobaccoeval/pdf/postertips.pdf
http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterdesign
http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/Dept/Tips/present/posters.htm
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/gus/writing_presenting/academic_posters.html
http://www.tltc.ttu.edu/teach/PresentingConferencePapersAndPostersInTheHumanities.asp
Some are directed at other disciplines, whilst others are directed at students. Together, however they should provide sufficient guidance.
Please do not hesitate to contact Kathryn if you require any further assistance.
Please note that you will be expected to attend the conference with your laminated poster ready to display. Neither the SLSA nor York Law School can provide printing facilities.
Tuesday 26th March | |
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10.00 | Registration opens |
10.30 - 12.30 |
York Wall Walk for Early Visitors |
12.00 noon | Post Graduate Hub Room Opens (PBL Area) |
12.30 - 14.00 | Lunch |
14.00 - 15.30 | Session 1 |
15.30 - 16.00 | Refreshments (Sponsored by Oxford University Press) |
16.00 - 17.30 | Session 2 (Book Group – Room 125 (PBL Area)) |
17.45 - 18.45 | Plenary session: Lady Brenda Hale, Justice of the Supreme Court “Should judges be socio-legal scholars?” LMB/002 |
18.30 - 20.00 | Evening Reception (Sponsored by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society) |
Wednesday 27th March | |
08.30 | Registration opens |
09.00 - 10.30 | Session 3 |
10.30 - 11.00 | Refreshments (Sponsored by Oxford University Press) |
11.00 -12.30 | Session 4 |
12.30 - 14.00 | Lunch |
13.00 - 14.00 | SLSA Annual General Meeting (LMB/002) |
14.00 - 15.30 | Session 5 |
15.30 - 16.00 | Refreshments (Sponsored by Oxford University Press) |
16.00 - 17.30 | Session 6 |
17.30 - 18.30 | Judging of the Poster Competition (PBL Area) (Sponsored by the Journal of Law and Society) |
19.30 - 23.30 |
Conference dinner and SLSA Prize giving - National Railway Museum (Sponsored by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society) |
Thursday 28th March | |
08.30 |
Registration opens |
09.30 - 11.00 | Session 7 |
11.00 - 11.30 | Refreshments (Sponsored by Oxford University Press) |
11.30 - 13.00 | Session 8 |
13.00 - 14.00 | Lunch and end of conference |
13.30 - 16.30 | SLS Executive meeting (132 - PBL Area) |
For those who arrive early and want to explore a little of what York has to offer you may be interested in our City Walk.
Meeting: 10.00am – next to the fountain in the centre of Parliament Street, near to the HSBC Bank, the Disney Store and Marks & Spencer. Parliament Street is the central paved shopping area in the city centre. If you are looking to find this by GPS the post code is YO1 8SG (for the Disney Store).
Advice: – we will return on the No. 44 bus, so guests may want to use the 44 in the morning and purchase a return ticket.
Walk:
Micklegate Bar – Micklegate Bar is one of the main “Bars” or entrances through York’s city wall. Micklegate has the added honour of being the Royal Entrance to York, and each Monarch must enter the City through Micklegate Bar, most recently Queen Elizabeth on Maundy Thursday 2012.
Walk on the Walls – From Micklegate we will take a walk on the Walls themselves, heading over the train station and down to Lendal Bridge.
Museum Gardens – Past Lendal Bridge we will enter the Museum Gardens, which contain a range of historical monuments. They include remnants from the Roman fortifications, as well as the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, a Benedictine Abbey which was suppressed in 1539.
King’s Manor – We will then visit King’s Manor, once a part of the Abbey complex, but preserved when the Abbey was suppressed. It was used for a century as the seat for the Council of the North, thereafter having various uses before becoming the home for the Yorkshire School for the Blind. The University acquired the building in 1963, and it now houses various departments.
Walk through City Centre – We will then take a walk through York’s historic city centre. We will pass York Minster, and other historic places (including the birthplace and baptismal church of Guy Fawkes) and the Shambles, York’s most famous medieval shopping street.
This will take us to the No. 44 bus stop, and we will take the bus back to the university campus. The 44 will stop at the Sally Baldwin Building (for accommodation) and continue to the Law School on Heslington East campus.
Time: Approx. 1.5 hours.
Key info: This tour will include some heavy walking, including steep stairs (on the City Walls), and going off paved roads (in the museum gardens).
Join the SLSA!
Student membership is free for the first year.
Contact us
For any queries about SLSA 2013, please contact us at: slsa2013@york.ac.uk