Ruth Buchanan

Ruth Buchanan is a Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where she joined as Associate Professor in 2006 and was promoted in 2016. She also holds an ongoing Senior Fellowship at Melbourne Law School for teaching in the Melbourne Law Masters program. Her interdisciplinary scholarship bridges law with humanities through critical theoretical frameworks.

Education:

• AB, Princeton University
• LLB, University of Victoria
• LLM, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• SJD, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Professor Buchanan's research centers on Law and Development, Legal Theory, and Law and Film, with significant contributions to visual legal studies and critical international law. She examines how international institutions produce development knowledge through visual mechanisms, analyzes Indigenous legal pluralism through material objects like treaties and drums, and explores cinematic representations of legal concepts. Her work consistently challenges Western legal hegemony through postcolonial and feminist lenses.

Recent publications (2017-2023) demonstrate her focus on visual epistemologies in development, Indigenous legal traditions, and film analysis. She critically investigates measurement practices in global governance, treaty relations through material culture, and cinematic narratives of law, revealing power dynamics in knowledge production. This body of work establishes visual legal studies as a vital methodology for understanding law's role in social transformation.

Scientific Awards:

• Osgoode Hall Research Fellowship (2015-16) for "Visualizing Developments" project

Professor Buchanan has supervised numerous LLM and PhD students in law and development, legal theory, and visual legal studies. She currently co-leads the "Visualizing Law and Development" project with Sundhya Pahuja and Luis Eslava, funded through Routledge-Cavendish Critical Approaches to Law. Her editorial service includes boards for Canadian Journal of Women and Law and Journal of Law, Culture and Humanities.

She founded the Law.Arts.Culture (LAC) Colloquium in 2011, hosting over two dozen interdisciplinary events on law and humanities. As past Director of Osgoode's Graduate Program (Research) and co-Director of the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, she has shaped institutional support for critical legal scholarship and feminist methodologies.