Lisa R. Pruitt

I founded a sub discipline in law that I call "Law and Rural Livelihoods," which explores rural-urban difference in relation to the law, with a focus on rural disadvantage and how rural socio-spatiality (e.g., material distance from others, including state actors; lack of anonymity) influences how rural residents view and interact with the state and legal institutions. In 2007, I started a blog called Legal Ruralism: A Little (Legal) Realism about the Rural.

I also write about the white working class as a critical race project, examining that which is at the intersection of white skin privilege and socioeconomic disadvantage. One of my goals is to complicate the simplistic narratives about this group that have come to dominate left-leaning, elite political discourse in the era of Trump.

As a first generation college graduate, I have a special interest in education access.

I teach Law and Rural Livelihoods, Working Class Whites and the Law, Feminist Legal Theory, The First-Gen Experience in Scholarly and Popular Literature, and Torts.