Taboo Trades

When is social pressure a justified response to wrongdoing, and when does it become an attempt to make someone betray their convictions? Scott Altman joins Kim Krawiec and student co-host Linnéa Selendy to discuss the ethics of boycotts, shunning, and shaming. The conversation ranges from religious shunning and the Montgomery bus boycott to MeToo, political hiring and firing, and online pile-ons....

College sports is experimenting with a new contractual device: transfer-triggered “buyouts” in athletes’ name, image, and likeness (NIL) agreements. Are these provisions legitimate estimates of a school’s difficult-to-measure losses, or are they penalties and functional noncompetes dressed in the language of contract damages? Contracts scholar Dave Hoffman joins Kim Krawiec, student co-host Liz Ja...

When does crime become work—and why does the legal system recognize some harmful activities as legitimate labor while criminalizing other activities undertaken to secure food, shelter, safety, or family survival? Yvette Butler , Professor of Law at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law , joins Kim Krawiec and UVA Law student cohosts Virginia Pillion and Sahanya Bhaktaram to discuss Butler’s ar...

Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski join Kim Krawiec, student co-hosts Joe Keys and Jake Ross, and members of UVA Law’s Taboo Trades seminar to discuss the second edition of Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests , a foundational work in the debate over the moral limits of markets. Their central claim is provocative: if you may do something for free and whether to do it is wit...

June Carbone joins Kim Krawiec, student co-host Damon Stefankiewicz, and members of UVA Law’s Taboo Trades seminar to discuss “Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men,” coauthored with Clare Huntington. Carbone argues that the difficulties facing boys and men—particularly those without college degrees—are rooted in economic precarity and policy choices, and that family law can compo...

In this episode, we welcome listeners to Season 7 of the Taboo Trades Podcast and introduce this year’s UVA Law student hosts: Mia Armstrong, Sahanya Bhaktaram, Tyler Donovan, Kate Garmer, Liz Jahoda-Wassung, Joseph Keys, Angelica Kim, Virginia Pillion, Jake Ross, Linnea Selendy, and Damon Stefankiewicz. Meet the students who will guide us through a new season of conversations about the markets an...

My guests today are Andrew Gilden, Southwestern Law School, and Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec, William & Mary Law School. They join me today to discuss their recent paper, Patenting the Taboo: Sex, Drugs, and Abortion , recently published in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. It’s a really fun article that looks at patent applications in three taboo spaces: sexual pleasure, illicit drugs, and...

My student co-hosts sign off, bringing Season 6 to an official close. Never fear, I'll be back throughout 2026 with exciting bonus episodes.

My guest today is Diane Tober, an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research. She is a medical anthropologist with a focus on biocultural aspects of health, gender and sexuality, the commodification of the body, science and technology studies, bioethics, and social and reproductive justice. She has been conducting research...

My guest today is Prabha Kotiswaran, a Professor of Law & Social Justice at King’s College London. Professor Kotiswaran’s main areas of research include criminal law, transnational criminal law, feminist legal studies and sociology of law. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor: Sex Work   and the Law in India , published by Princeton Univers...

My guest today is Emily Stolzenberg, an Associate Professor of Law and Reuschlein Emerging Scholar at Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law. Her research focuses on conflicts between individual autonomy and legal obligation in the fields of family law and property. She joins us today to discuss her forthcoming article, Toward a Private Law of Intimates’ Obligations, which will be pub...

My guest today is Jeff Skopek, a Professor of Law and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Law, Medicine, and Life Sciences at the University of Cambridge.  He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph. D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. His research explores the normative and conceptual foundations of health law, focusing in particular on the health...

My guest today is Jonathan Adler, Cabell Research Professor and Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School. Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including  Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution  (Palgrave, 2023),  Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane  (Brookings Institution Press, 2020),   Business and the Roberts Cou...

My guest today is Bailey Sanders, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Duke University. Her work examines how market competition can advance gender equality and the critical role of women’s representation in law and politics. Her research bridges antitrust, constitutional law, and gender equity, and has appeared or is forthcoming in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals. She is also c...

My guest today is Sadie Blanchard, a Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. She teaches and writes about contracts, corporations, and international business law. Her research examines how legal institutions interact with social forces to shape behavior, especially in markets. She’s here today to discuss her recent article, Contract or Prison, in the University of Chicago Law Review. The...

My guest today is Elaine Perlman, an altruistic kidney donor, President of the Coalition to Modify NOTA, and Executive Director of Waitlist Zero. She is leading campaigns to pass the End Kidney Deaths Act (which is the subject of our discussion today) and the Honor Our Living Donors Act. As a bit of background, the End Kidney Deaths Act (H.R. 2687/ EKDA) is a ten year pilot program that would prov...

Hello listeners and welcome to a new season of the Taboo Trades podcast! I’m back again with a great group of UVA Law students who will guide us through the latest research and current events in a variety of taboo settings. We’ll discuss compensating living kidney donors, commercial surrogacy in India, plea bargaining, animal welfare, fish and wildlife conservation, and much, much more. Some of ou...

I’m joined today by two special guests to discuss an unusual and ethically complex type of organ donation – imminent death donation, or IDD. As you’ll hear Thao Galvan explain in the episode, organ donation currently has three standard types: living donation, donation after brain death (a type of deceased donation in which the patient is declared brain dead, and thus legally dead), and donation af...

Welcome to a very special bonus episode of the Taboo Trades podcast! Today I have a record number of guests – five in total—continuing a discussion that we began at Yale’s Newman Colloquium earlier this summer. We discuss exploitation and trafficking in international human rights law, especially in the context of reproductive and sexual labor. You’ll hear more about that colloquium and that conver...

In this sign off episode, I say good bye to this year's student cohosts from UVA Law: Anthony Freyre, Kimberly Garcia, Laura Habib, Olivia King, Alyssa Lawrence, Alyssa Marshall, Alexa Rothborth, Nia Saunders, Tanner Stewart, Cyrus Tafti, John Henry Vansant, Lauren White But never fear, loyal listeners. I'll be back in 2025 with bonus episodes featuring interesting authors discussing the...

My guest today is Aziza Ahmed, a Professor of Law and N. Neal Pike Scholar at the Boston University School of Law. She is also a Co-Director of BU Law’s Program on Reproductive Justice. She joins me and UVA Law 3L, Nia Saunders, to discuss her new book  Risk and Resistance: How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS , forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2025.  Prior to teachi...

My guest today is the always interesting and funny Steve Clowney, a professor of law at the University of Arkansas. He has also worked as a legal consultant in Hawaii, a college admissions officer, and a gravedigger. His main areas of research include zoning regulations, monuments, the history of cities, handwritten wills, and the presence of violence in informal property systems. He joins us toda...

I’m thrilled today to welcome new friend, Albertina Antognini and old (by which I mean long-time) friend, Susan Appleton. Albertina Antognini is the James E. Rogers Professor of Law at the University of Arizona where she teaches Family Law, Property, Trusts & Estates, and a seminar surveying different legal regimes that shape the contemporary American family. Professor Antognini’s work examine...

My guest today is Courtney Cahill, a Chancellor's Professor of Law at UC Irvine School of Law. Professor Cahill is a scholar of constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, sex equality, and LGBTQ equality. Her work examines the role of disgust in lawmaking and the synergies between sex equality and LGBTQ equality. She joins us today to discuss her latest project, Busted: Policing Women on To...

My guest today is Jill Lens, who serves as the Dorothy M. Willie Professor in Excellence at the University of Iowa school of law. Professor Lens is a leading legal expert in reproductive justice and rights, with a particular focus on the legal treatment of stillbirth and pregnancy more generally. Her research is inspired by her son Caleb’s stillbirth in 2017, when she was 37 weeks pregnant.  She j...