New Directions in the Sociology of Law is an edited volume of 9 essays which examine how the "body" in law is viewed in various ways. This vision of the "body" is effected by their situation within societies` social structure and has traditionally come from a white, male, priveleged,heterosexist standpoint. This viewpoint has definite implications, both in text and in praxis, for those whose "bodies" deviate in any way from this normative base. This deviation, the contributors argue, takes particularixed forms in the interaction between the canon of law and those legalsubjects that it governs. The essays are divided into three sections: Part I - Description of the Body, which examines how women are viewed and reviewed in a court of law; Part II - Inscription of the Body, which examines how race inscribes the body even before entering the door of a courtroom; and Part III - Division ofthe Body, which examines how class divides the bodies from each other, symbolically and physically.

Gayle MacDonald is professor of Sociology at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. She is the co-author of Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back (2006-7), the editor of Social Location and Social Context in the Sociology of Law (2002), and is currently editing a collection on women's resistance to law, with Ellen Faulkner.

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