Distinguished Scholars 2008-2009
It is no overstatement that the Gould School of Law at USC is better positioned, through its history and through the intellectual curiosity of its faculty and students, than most any other law school to engage in interdisciplinary scholarship. Such bold initiatives, now commonplace in the legal scholarship, such as law and economics and the political-economy of law, were pioneered at USC. The Center for the Study of Law and Politics (CSLP) carries on this proud tradition and is a focal point for interdisciplinary scholarship in law. The Distinguished Visitors series at CSLP attempts to bring to the Law School interdisciplinary scholars from outside of law, who are widely recognized in the social sciences, and whose research has the potential to transform how scholars think about law and/or politics. Bringing them to the law school for a week at a time allows law scholars and law students at USC a chance to have continued interaction with these scholars so that the expertise these scholars possess can be shared with the scholars and students here. Moreover, it is hoped in turn that the interaction here moves the CSLP Distinguished Visitors to engage the legal scholarship. CSLP Distinguished Visitors typically give a faculty seminar or keynote address, teach in one or more scheduled classes and hold office hours for the week they are present. During a Distinguished Visitor's stay at the Gould School of Law, CSLP also typically organizes a day-long symposium, drawing together CSLP fellows and other scholars from the USC community and from throughout Southern California, to create a forum for the exchange of ideas. This too brings the world to USC Law and with it the cutting edge of ideas from numerous disciplines. The symposia are also often taped and webcast. In academic year 2007-8 more than forty scholars made presentations at these symposia to an audience of nearly one hundred scholars and students.
We are pleased to announce the 2008-2009 Distinguished Scholars
Mark Turner
Mark Turner is Institute Professor and Chair of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of Cognitive Dimensions of Social Science: The Way We Think about Politics, Economics, Law, and Society (Oxford, 2001), among other books and articles. Turner and Gilles Fauconnier are the architects of Conceptual Integration Theory, presented in The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities (Basic, 2002). Turner's 2008 article "Frame Blending in Linguistics, Politics, and Economics" is available at http://markturner.org/FrameBlendingTurner.pdf. Turner has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is external research professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study in Cognitive Neuroscience and distinguished fellow at the New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology.
Mark Turner will be presenting his work at the CSLP Symposium on Cognitive-Neuroscience and the Law on September 3rd in the Law School Faculty Lounge from 1-2:20 p.m. Please RSVP to the CSLP Program Manager: Peggy J. Vadillo at pvadillo@law.usc.edu.
Paul J. Zak
Paul J. Zak is Professor of Economics and the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Zak also serves as Professor of Neurology at Loma Linda University Medical Center, and is a Senior Researcher at UCLA. He has degrees in mathematics and economics from San Diego State University, a Ph.D. in economics from University of Pennsylvania, and post-doctoral training in neuroimaging from Harvard. Professor Zak is credited with the first published use of the term "neuroeconomics" and has been a vanguard in this new discipline that integrates neuroscience and economics. He organized and administers the first doctoral program in neuroeconomics in the world at Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Zak's lab discovered in 2004 that an ancient chemical in our brains, oxytocin, allows us to determine who to trust and is the basis for moral behavior. This knowledge is being used to understand the basis for modern civilizations and modern economies, improve negotiations, law, and public policy, and treat patients with neurologic and psychiatric disorders. His new book "Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy" appeared in 2008 from Princeton University Press.
- Professor Paul J. Zak's vitae
- You can also visit his lab at http://www.neuroeconomicstudies.org/.
Paul J. Zak will be presenting his work at the CSLP Symposium on Cognitive-Neuroscience and the Law on September 3rd in the Law School Faculty Lounge from 3:20-5:00 p.m. Please RSVP to the CSLP Program Manager: Peggy J. Vadillo at pvadillo@law.usc.edu.
Emerson Tiller
Emerson Tiller is the J. Landis Martin Professor of Law and Business at Northwestern University School of Law. Working out of a positive political theoretical framework, Professor Tiller models strategic judicial behavior and tests these models with various empirical techniques. His work is most noted for its integration of legal instrument and doctrinal analyses into models of strategic political games between lower courts and higher courts, or among judges on multi-member courts. His work on law and judicial institutions has been applied to issues of administrative law, criminal law, contract law, and intellectual property and has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, the Journal of Legal Studies, and the Journal of Law and Economics.
Emerison Tiller will be presenting his work at the CSLP Symposium on PPT and the Law on January 15 in the Law School Faculty Lounge. Please RSVP to the CSLP Program Manager: Peggy J. Vadillo at pvadillo@law.usc.edu
