Research

A photo of Charles M. Gray; University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-09935r, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
Prof. Charles M. Gray taught legal history courses in LLSO and its precursor PERL (Politics, Economics, Rhetoric, and Law). As Master of the New Collegiate Division, he also oversaw the development of LLSO in the early 1990s.

Research plays a central role in the Law, Letters, and Society major. All students in the program are required to write a BA thesis and they are encouraged to pursue funded research opportunities during the summer following their second or third year. 

This page highlights student research as well as research fellowships that may interest LLSO majors.

 

    All students in the major are strongly encouraged to apply for at least one of the opportunities below in their second or third year in preparation for writing a BA thesis in their fourth year. Some programs place students on faculty research projects while others provide funding for research assistantships that students have already identified. Additional programs invite students to conduct their own independent research under the guidance of a faculty supervisor. Keep in mind that applications for summer research opportunities are often due early in the Winter quarter.

    Students can learn more about many of these programs and receive guidance on preparing their applications by attending the information sessions offered by the College Center for Research and Fellowships. 

    Summer Research Experiences in Chicago

    Support for Summer BA Thesis Research

    Summer Research Abroad (many of these programs are intended for BA thesis research)

    Additional Programs at the University of Chicago

    The Charles M. Gray Research Fellowship supports undergraduate students’ original, faculty mentored research in their final years of study. The award aims to allow students to synthesize knowledge and approaches from broad fields of study in projects of their own design related to BA theses or junior papers. Application instructions are sent to third-year students in LLSO during the Winter quarter. 

    Charles Montgomery Gray was a distinguished legal historian, a winner of the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and a professor in the Department of History. He was the author of the books: Copyhold, Equity, and the Common Law; History of the Common Law; Hugh Latimer and the Sixteenth Century; and Renaissance and Reformation England. He also had written numerous articles about legal history and Volumes I, II, III and IV of Jurisdiction in Early Modern English Law. He served as co-editor of the Journal of Modern History, with Professor Hanna H. Gray, president emeritus of the University. 

    The Charles M. Gray Research Fellowship was created to honor his memory and to encourage in a new generation of students his devotion to learning and thoughtful research.

    Recent Recipients from LLSO

    • 2024: Arsima Araya, to study the experiences of African asylum seekers and refugees with governmental institutions 
    • 2023: Casey Mathur, to study nineteenth-century debates about the economic and environmental problems associated with sugar cultivation in colonial India
    • 2023: Rama Narayanan, to study how capitalism shapes creative media
    • 2023: Maggie Rivera, to study Chicago’s sanctuary city policy through the experiences of asylum seekers and community members who have been affected by the Wadsworth resettlement program
    • 2023: Charlotte Wang, to study the effectiveness of legal protections for pregnant women in the workplace
    • 2022: Jacob Botaish, to study Classical influences on the U.S. Constitution and early American law 
    • 2022: Anna Myers, to study the ways in which the philosophers of the Frankfurt School conceived of the relationship between human agency and revolutionary potential
    • 2022: Alice Xiuqi Tay, to study the role played by the Gang of Four trial within Deng Xiaoping's efforts to reform China's legal system

    Our students’ BA theses build upon the knowledge and skills that they develop through an interdisciplinary study of law. Recent titles include:

    • "Lunch/Time: A Historical and Literary Approach to Time, Work, and the Lunch Break"
    • "Screening Abortion: Filmic Depictions of Reproductive Privacy and their Effect on Formations of Public Opinion from 1945-1973"
    • "Resolving Controversies in Euthanasia Law: A Statutory Model Based on Laws in the Netherlands, Oregon, and Colombia" 
    • "'Downfall of the 700 Emperors': The 1990 Wild Lily Student Movement and Taiwan’s Democratization"
    • "Orders of Propriety: The Moral Meaning of Class Distinction in Nineteenth Century American Life"
    • "Free Speech Phantoms: The Philosophical Foundations of Corporate Political Speech and Citizens United v. FEC"
    • "More Dangerous Than War: Examining the Efficacy of the UN Genocide Convention"
    • "When We Try to Transform Society: Is the PIC Abolition Movement a New Religious Movement?"
    • "The Need for a Broad Perspective: Discrimination and Criminal Disenfranchisement Law"
    • “Prioritizing Humanity: Exploring Alternatives to the U.S. Immigration Detention System”
    • "Is the Aggregate Theory of Corporate Personhood Consistent with the Modern Corporate Form?" 
    • "Repackaging Bias: Effects of Algorithmic Risk Assessment on Bail Setting Decisions in Broward County, Florida"

    The program's BA Thesis Prize honors the pioneering work of Dennis Hutchinson, the founding director of Law, Letters, and Society and the William Rainey Harper Professor in the College. It is awarded annually to the best BA thesis written in the LLSO major. The prize recognizes a thesis that formulates an important problem in legal scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective, demonstrating the capacity to draw from relevant theoretical literature and bodies of evidence, while presenting its arguments and conclusion clearly and cogently. The author of the winning thesis receives a $500 award.

    Recipients 

    • 2024: Marie Ardy, "The Major Questions Doctrine: An Inquiry into Doctrinal Shifts and Supreme Court Power"
    • 2023: Erin Braner, "Finding Nemo: On the Application of Nemo Dat Non Quod Habet to Cultural Property Law and the Case of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls in the Schøyen Collection"
    • 2022: Annabelle Burns, “The Financialization of the Music Industry: Songs as Assets in the New Economy” 
    • 2021: Ivanna Shevel, "Briefing the President: The Minimization of Analytical Uncertainty in Daily Intelligence" 

    The Law, Letters, and Society Review is a journal of undergraduate research. The objective of this publication is to turn BA theses into academic articles of the highest quality and to provide a venue for publishing Wegener Essays. Since 2024, it has been edited by LLSO students and published online. 

    Contents of Volume 1 (2022)

    • David Lebow, "Introduction"
    • Zachary Djanogly Garai, "Election Integrity in a Democracy of Doubt" (Wegener Prize Essay) 
    • Alejandro Turriago Tobón, "Federal Reserve Currency Swaps as Technical and Nonpolitical Foreign Policy"
    • Federico Rivero Solano, "Analysis of the IMF's Debt Relief Programs in the Context of Sovereign Restructuring" 
    • Sarah Alexander Milby, "The Crypto-Currency World Divide: Government Regulation of Initial Coin Offerings" 
    • Michael Tolchinsky, “ ‘All they give a damn about is who did it and evidence’: Prejudice, Probative Value, and the Admissibility of Hip-Hop Lyrics as Evidence in Criminal Trials”

     

    The Forum on Law and Legalities aims to gather scholars and students from various disciplines to discuss historical and contemporary issues related to the nature, structure, and effects of legal discourse and practice.

 

Photo of Charles M. Gray from the University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-09935, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.