HIST/WGSS 376: Sex, Gender, and the Law in U.S. History: In-Class Activity

Choose one of the Amicus Curiae briefs you skimmed in class and with a partner, look into the cited authorities using Nexis Uni and Google Scholar.  Create a diagram that expresses the citational values of each brief by:

• Learning about other works, cases, briefs, etc. cited authorities have also been cited in. 
• Looking into one or more works in depth, to consider why it has been used-- what is the citational gesture or obligation happening?
• Labeling the type of source
• Developing a descriptive tagging system to thematically assign ideas, or code, individual authorities. 
• Connects citations together to critique citational power within the brief, and demonstrate power. 

Qualitative method in social sciences by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot and Jessica Hoffman-Davis to situate complexity and authorial position in The Art and Science of Portraiture, portraiture methodology revolves around six themes:

• Context (The political, historic, situational position the subject exists in)
• Voice (Its uniqueness)
• Relationship (Relationships between subjects, the authors' relationship to the inquiry)
• Emergent Themes (The threads of the research, complexity, nuance)
• Aesthetic Whole (The mechanism of the final product-- the co-creation of a work of art or scholarship between author and subject). 

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  Portraiture can be useful for interrogating collections and primary sources