Description

The Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) at NUS Law sponsored and organised the inaugural Training Initiative for Asian Law & Society Scholars (TRIALS) workshop on 9–12 December 2019 at the Bukit Timah Campus. The TRIALS program, supported by a major grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, is directed by Associate Professor Lynette Chua (NUS Law) in collaboration with SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus David Engel (State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law). For Workshop 1, TRIALS organizers selected 10 advanced graduate students and junior faculty members from more than 100 applicants from numerous Asian countries as well as the United States, Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere in the world.

TRIALS faculty represent some of the world’s leading law and society scholars. Workshop 1 faculty, in addition to Professor Chua and Engel, included Professor Emeritus Keebet von Benda-Beckmann (Martin Luther University Halle/Wittenberg and Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Professor Mary Gallagher (University of Michigan), and Professor Kwai Hang Ng (University of California, San Diego). Professor Andrew Harding (National University of Singapore) joined the workshop to present an enjoyable lecture on Singapore’s heritage and regulation of the five-foot way.

The TRIALS Program aims to train the next generation of law and society scholars, with six workshops over a three-year period offering mentoring and training in research methodologies, scholarly writing, preparation of manuscripts for publication, and career planning. The contents of the TRIALS workshops are tailored to the interests and research methods of the specific participants in each instance. At the inaugural workshop, the faculty presented overviews and insights into various aspects and features of law and society scholarship, discussed research design and methods, and shared with the participants their wealth of experience on writing for publication, and launching and sustaining a professional career. Individual follow-up activities involving faculty and participants will continue after the workshop, creating lasting relationships within each of the cohorts and also between senior mentors and younger scholars.

More information about the TRIALS workshop may be found here: https://law.nus.edu.sg/cals/training/trials.html

TRIALS Workshop 1 faculty and selected participants: https://law.nus.edu.sg/cals/pdfs/training/TRIALSWorkshop1.pdf

TRIALS Workshops 1 and 2 call for applications: https://law.nus.edu.sg/cals/pdfs/training/trials.pdf

The next round of application for TRIALS Workshops 3 and 4 will open in March/April 2020. For inquiries, please write to TRIALSNUSLaw@gmail.com.