Assistant Professor of Political Science Maryann Barakso was recently elected President of the American Political Science Association (APSA) Women & Politics Research Section. Professor Barakso will be the Program Chair of the section for APSA in 2010 before serving as the President in 2010-2011. This is quite an honor and we congratulate Professor Barakso on her accomplishment.

In Material Law, John Brigham focuses on the places where law and material life intersect, and how law creates and alters our social reality. Brigham looks at a variety of bodies and things-- from maps and territories and trends in courthouse architecture to a woman's womb and a judge body-- to make connections between the material and the legal.  Robert L. Tsai, author of Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture has praised, "From one of our most astute observers of the law's many constitutive dimensions, Material Law is part biography, part theory.

Read the article: "Cutting the Cord".

The Online NewsHour recently spoke with an expert on the judicial system, the Political Science Departmen'ts own Sheldon Goldman, about the details of the confirmation process, notable confirmation hearings of the past and the role of the federal appeals court system. Sheldon Goldman has taught Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst since 1965 and has written numerous books and articles on the American judicial system, including "Picking Federal Judges."