Chapter Seven Far from the Madding Crowds: Redefining the Field of Socio-Legal Studies from Within Nergis Canefe Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) This chapter examines key questions regarding socio-legal studies (SLS) and social change, with the central argument that more needs to be done to bring the field “out of the university and onto the streets.” To this end, it attempts to document some of the problematic aspects of past endeavours in this regard. The chapter concludes with the suggestion of political philosopher Agnes Heller’s work as the right kind of remedy for such ailments. Although Walter Benjamin’s work is also introduced albeit briefly, the focus is mainly on the questions Benjamin asks rather than the answers his work might lead to. Overall, laying out some of the main theoretical threads used by SLS scholars is used as a point of entry for a dedicated debate on the changing meaning of interdisciplinarity, dissent and discontent. Since the emergence of socio-legal studies as a distinct field and a transdisciplinary track of analysis back in the late 1960s, the maxims of being pluralistic, self-reflective, critical and subversive became common markers of the scholarship associated with it. The combined study of law, legal institutions, legal processes, policy reform, politics, normative orders, the relationship between the state and the law, production of criminality, jurisprudence and much more were poised to surpass what sociology of law, anthropology of law, psychology of law, legal history, criminology, law and economics promised to deliver. One of the defining features of socio-legal studies, in contrast to traditional doctrinal law, has been its activist, or social- justice oriented current, leading to the hand-in-hand march of activism, social and community