Learning and Teaching Seminar | 28 November

You are invited to the Learning and Teaching seminar scheduled for Thursday 28 November at 1pm (light lunch provided from 12:45pm).

The presenter: Rebecca Johnson, Professor and  Associate Director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law

Title: Revitalizing Indigenous Laws in a Settler State? -Field Notes from the Front Line  

Abstract: In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools published its Final Report, with its now famous “94 Calls to Action.”  The Commission concluded that the relationship between Indigenous People and the Canadian State needed a profound re-working, and that this work would implicate all Canadians in multiple domains.   Law Schools and Law Societies in particular were called upon to rethink the substance and practice of legal education, and to teach about Indigenous Laws. The TRC Calls to Action generated significant discussion in the Canadian legal community about multiple ways to respond. Two innovative responses at the University of Victoria have been the establishment of the Indigenous Law Research Unit (ILRU) and the creation of the JD/JID (a wholly new Joint Degree Program in Canadian Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders).  In this session, I will share some thoughts on the UVic experience with launching these two initiatives, including some reflections on both the challenges and pleasures of being a non-Indigenous scholar working in collaboration with others at the intersection of Indigenous and Common Law legal orders.

Bio:
Rebecca Johnson is a Professor of Law, and the Associate Director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law. After completing degrees in Music, Management, and Law (BMus, MBA, LLB), she was a law clerk to Madame Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dube at the Supreme Court of Canada.  She received her LLM and SJD from the University of Michigan.  Her research and teaching interests are marked by an interest in cross-disciplinarity and collaboration, and include such topics as judicial dissent, Indigenous legal methodologies, same-sex family formation, mothers and babies in prison, Inuit law and film, and inter-cultural legal theory.  In recent years, she has worked on the development of the blog #ReconciliationSyllabus (focused on curricular responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action), as well as on a number of initiatives with the Indigenous Law Research Unit. She currently teaches Business Associations, Law and Film, Legal Theory, and Indigenous Research Method and Practice.

Register here by COB Friday 22 November