Invitation to Law & Society ─ An Introduction to the Study of Real Law

Law and society is a rapidly growing field that turns the conventional view of law as mythical abstraction on its head. Kitty Calavita brilliantly brings to life the ways in which law is found not only in statutes and courtrooms but in our institutions and interactions, while inviting readers into conversations that introduce the field’s dominant themes and most lively disagreements. Deftly interweaving scholarship with familiar examples, Calavita shows how scholars in the discipline are collectively engaged in a subversive expose of law’s public mythology. While surveying prominent issues and distinctive approaches to both law as it is written and actual legal practices, as well as the law’s potential as a tool for social change, this volume provides a view of law that is more real but just as compelling as its mythic counterpart.

With this second edition of Invitation to Law and Society, Kitty Calavita brings up to date what is arguably the leading introduction to this exciting, evolving field of inquiry and adds a new chapter on the growing law and cultural studies movement.

Kitty Calavita is chancellor’s professor emerita in the Departments of Criminology, Law and Society, and Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author, most recently, ofAppealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic.