Spring Legal Studies Seminar — UW & St. Jerome’s

The University of Waterloo and St. Jerome’s University are holding a joint legal studies seminar on Thursday, April 23, focused on sexual violence and digital platforms. (uwaterloo.ca) The talk is scheduled for 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time, and the speaker is Dr. Elaine Craig. The event page lists the seminar title as “Law, technology, and the Platformization of sex: Sexual Violence in a Data Driven Era.” (uwaterloo.ca) The Daily Bulletin says members of the campus community are invited to attend, and it directs readers to the bulletin for the room and location details. The seminar is hosted by Sociology and Legal Studies with St. Jerome’s University. (uwaterloo.ca) Legal studies seminars are academic talks where researchers test ideas in public before students and faculty. St. Jerome’s says this joint series runs twice a year and showcases scholarship from the legal studies field. (uwaterloo.ca) This year’s spring seminar centers on how online platforms shape sexual commerce and the legal questions that follow. St. Jerome’s event listing says the business model for mainstream pornography has changed, shifting from earlier centralized distribution toward platform-based systems driven by data. (uwaterloo.ca) That framing puts the seminar inside a wider campus conversation about how law is adapting to technology-mediated harm. The University of Waterloo and St. Jerome’s both house legal studies teaching through Sociology and Legal Studies programs, giving the event a built-in audience of students studying law, society, and public policy. (uwaterloo.ca) The series itself is established rather than one-off. University of Waterloo listings for earlier seminars show the same joint format in previous terms, including a Spring 2025 event and other talks in the seminar series. (uwaterloo.ca 1) (uwaterloo.ca 2) For Thursday’s event, the practical takeaway is simple: a one-hour seminar, open to the campus community, on April 23 at 1 p.m., with location details posted through the University of Waterloo bulletin. (uwaterloo.ca)