Irus Braverman is an Associate Professor of Law and an Adjunct Professor of Geography at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Her main interests lie in the interdisciplinary study of law, geography, and anthropology. Writing within this nexus, she has researched illegal houses, trees, checkpoints, public toilets, and zoos.Her first book, "House Demolitions in East Jerusalem: 'Illegality' and Resistance," focuses on how planning laws and regulations applied in East Jerusalem create a discriminatory urban landscape and produce illegal spaces. Her second book, "Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine" (Cambridge University Press, 2009) describes how acts of planting and uprooting trees have facilitated the struggle over land and identity in Israel/Palestine. Her current project draws on over seventy interviews with zoo administrators from across North America to offer a rare glimpse into the nature of contemporary zoos as they carefully govern their animals.