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Biography

Sara Ramshaw is Professor of Law and Director of Cultural, Social and Political Thought at the Ó£»¨Ó°ÊÓ. This appointment follows previous positions at the University of Exeter (England) and Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland). After receiving her BA (Hons) from the University of Toronto, Sara obtained both a LLB and a LLM from the University of British Columbia. She then clerked at the Ontario Court of Justice (General Division) and was called to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2000. Sara worked for the Ministry of the Attorney General at the Superior Court of Justice, Family Court in Toronto before commencing postgraduate studies at the University of London (Birkbeck College) in England. Her research interests fall broadly in the area of arts-based approaches to law, with a specific focus on the improvisatory arts, especially music, dance and theatre. Sara has published widely in international journals and given invited talks throughout the Commonwealth and beyond. She has held visiting positions at the Westminster Law and Theory Lab (London, England), the International Institute of Critical Studies in Improvisation (Guelph, Canada), the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast) and the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (Melbourne, Australia).

Education

• BA (Hons), University of Toronto;
• LLB, University of British Columbia,
• LLM, University of British Columbia,
• PhD (Law), University of London (Birkbeck School of Law)

Selected books

• Golder, Ben and Sara Ramshaw, Dangerous Supplements: The Work and Significance of Peter Fitzpatrick (2021) 32(3) Law and Critique. URL:
• James Parker, Sara Ramshaw and Mehera San Roque, The Acoustics of Justice: Law Listening Sound (2020) 24 Law Text Culture. URL:
• Ramshaw, S. and Paul Stapleton, Just Improvisation: Enriching law through musical techniques, discourses and pedagogies (2018) 12(1) Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation. URL: . 
• Justice as Improvisation: The Law of the Extempore (London: Routledge, 2013)

Selected publications

• ‘Fitzpatrick and the Feminine Law’ (2024) 20(3) Law, Culture and the Humanities (Essays in Honour of Peter Fitzpatrick) 519-526;
• ‘Conclusion: Subverting the Law and Humanities Canon’ in Daniel Newman and Russell Sandberg, eds., Law and Humanities (Anthem Press, 2024), 225-232;
• ‘Law and Humanities: A Field Without a Canon’ (2023) 19(1) Law, Culture and the Humanities 77-88;
• ‘The Song and Silence of the Sirens: Attunement to the “Other” in Law and Music’ in Danilo Mandic, Caterina Nirta, Andrea Pavoni, and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopolous, eds., Law and the Senses: HEAR (London: University of Westminster Press, 2022), 87-142;
• ‘Rethinking Realtimeness in Improvisation’, in Alessandro Bertinetto and Marcello Ruta, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Improvisation in the Arts (Routledge, 2021), 129-142;
• ‘Rainbow Family: Machine Listening, Musical Improvisation and Access to Justice in International Family Law’ in Shane Chalmers and Sundhya Pahuja, eds., Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities (London and New York: Routledge, 2021), 446-460;
• (With Paul Stapleton) ‘From Prepeace to Postconflict: The Ethics of (Non) Listening and Cocreation in a Divided Society’ in Daniel Fischlin and Eric Porter, eds., Playing for Keeps: Improvisation in the Aftermath (Duke University Press, 2020), 300-324;
• ‘Deconstructin(g) Jazz Improvisation: Derrida and the Law of the Singular Event’ (2006) 2(1) Critical Studies in Improvisation, 19pp.

Other work

• Liner Notes, Nous, Yarde/Prévost/Moore (Live Recording from the Vortex Jazz Club, 23 February 2020), October 2020.

Special Projects

• Into the Key of Law: Transposing Musical Improvisation. The Case of Child Protection in Northern Ireland: http://translatingimprovisation.com/ahrc.

Recognition and Awards

• Edward Boyle/Alberta Research Scholarship, London, England.
• Overseas Research Students Tuition Scholarship, Universities U.K., England (£20,000 GBP).
• Ronnie Warrington Doctoral Fellowship, Birkbeck School of Law, England (£20,000 GBP).
• British Columbia Law Foundation Graduate Fellowship, Vancouver, B.C. ($15,000 CAN).
• British Columbia Law Foundation Scholarship, Vancouver, B.C. ($7,500 CAN).
• Rex Lucas Graduation Award in the Social Sciences, University of Toronto, Ontario.
• T-Holder Academic Excellence Award, University of Toronto, Ontario.
• Rex Lucas Memorial Scholarship in the Social Sciences, University of Toronto, Ontario.

Grants

• Co-Applicant, Improvising Futures, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant.
• Internal Research and Creative Project Grant (IRCPG), Machine Listening, Improvisation and Access to Justice in Family Law, Ó£»¨Ó°ÊÓ.
• The Canadian Foundation for Legal Research Grant, Machine Listening: The Key to Digital Family Justice in BC and Beyond? 
• Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH), Melbourne Law School, Melbourne, Australia, Travel Grant.
• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Early Career Research Grant, Principal Investigator (PI), Into the Key of Law: Transposing Musical Improvisation. The Case of Child Protection in Northern Ireland, 18-month long project completed on 7 December 2015.
• QUB Institute of Collaborative Research in the Humanities (ICRH) Research Project Group funding (with Paul Stapleton).
• QUB School of Law funding (for Translating Improvisation International Colloquium) (with Paul Stapleton).
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI) Project, Improvisation, Community and Social Practice (ICASP) in partnership with Centre de recherche en éthique de l’Université de Montréal (CRÉUM), Montréal, Québec, Canada.
• Bilbrough Bursary, Goodenough College, London, England.
• Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship, Ottawa, Ontario.
• Central Research Fund Grant, University of London, England.

Courses

• Law 105/105I: Contract Law
• Law 106: Legal Process
• CSPT 501/601: Core Course in Critical, Social and Political Thought
• Law 502: Graduate Seminar in Applied Legal Methodology 
• Law 322: Family Law

Graduate supervision

Prof. Ramshaw is interested in supervising graduate students in the following areas: arts-based approaches to law; law and the humanities; family law; feminist/intersectional legal theory; improvisation and the law; music and the law; critical legal studies; critical contract law; and poststructural legal theory.