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Post Frequency: 20.9/day Last Entry: November 19, 2009 at 13:13:00 Recent Entries: 417
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LCCHP Announces Winners of Annual Student Writing Competition
Posted on November 19, 2009From the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP)The Lawyers? Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2009 annual student writing competition, sponsored by Andrews Kurth LLP. The first-place winner is Amelia Sargent of Stanford University Law School for a paper entitled ?New Jurisdictional Tools for Displaced Cultural Property in Russia: From ?Twice Saved? to ?Twice Taken??...
Translation, Comparative Law, and Localism
Posted on November 19, 2009P. G. Monateri, University of Turin School of Law has published "'Cunning Passages': Traductology, Comparison and Ideology in the Law and Language Story." Here is the abstract.My standpoint in this paper is that in affording the subject of Law and Language we face a mass of ?local issues?, and ?local puzzles?, but that we still lack a theory to grasp with the bulk of the matter...
Reza Banakar, University of Westminster
Posted on November 17, 2009Reza Banakar, University of Westminster School of Law, has published "In Search of Heimat: A Note on Franz Kafka?s Concept of Law," in volume 22 of Law and Literature (Summer 2010). Here is the abstract.Are Franz Kafka?s descriptions of law and legality a figment of his imagination or do they go beyond his obsessive probing of his neurosis, reflecting issues which also engaged the social and legal theorists of the time? Does Kafka?s conception of law offer anything new in respect to law, justice and bureaucracy, which was not explored by his contemporaries or by later legal scholars? This paper uses Kafka?s office writings as a starting point for re-examining the images of law, bureaucracy, hierarchy and authority in his fiction; images which are traditionally treated as metaphors for things other than law...
Positions Open
Posted on November 16, 2009ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW and SOCIETY JOB DESCRIPTION: Successful candidates will be expected to teach courses in each of the following categories: (1) Introduction to Law and Society and/or Introduction to Law and Justice, (2) Comparative Legal Systems, American Legal History, Contemporary Issues in Law and Society, and/or Legal Rhetoric, (3) Directed Readings and Thesis Supervision and (4) electives of the major...
Conference on Legal Fictions in Early Cultures, UCI
Posted on November 16, 2009From Robin S. Stewart, Department of English, University of California, Irvine, Information on the Webcast of the UCI Graduate Student Conference "Legal Fictions in Early Cultures"Here's the link to the online version of the conference:http://www.humanities...
Legal Fictions
Posted on November 10, 2009Nancy J. Knauer, Temple University School of Law, has published Legal Fictions and Juristic Truth, in volume 22 of St. Thomas Law Review (2010). Here is the abstract. The classic legal fiction is a curious artifice of legal reasoning. In a discipline primarily concerned with issues of fact and responsibility, the notion of a legal fiction should seem an anathema or, at the very least, an ill-suited means to promote a just result...
The Significance of the Charles River Bridge Case
Posted on November 05, 2009Alfred S. Konefsky, University at Buffalo Law School, SUNY, has published "Simon Greenleaf, Boston Elites and the Social Meaning and Construction of the Charles River Bridge Case," in Transformations in American Law: Essays in Honor of Morton J. Horowitz (sic), vol...
Law, Text, Terror
Posted on November 04, 2009Ian Ward, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Faculty of Law, has published Law, Text, Terror, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Here is the abstract. The relationship between law and terrorism has re-emerged recently as a pressing issue in contemporary jurisprudence...
An Economic Analysis of Immoral Contracts in Roman Law
Posted on October 30, 2009Péter Cserne, Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC), and Gergely Deli have published "Contracts and Morals: Towards an Economic Analysis of Immoral Contracts in Ancient Rome," as TILEC Discussion Paper 2009-037. Here is the abstract. The way we nowadays think about ?immoral? contracts is based on a number of assumptions...
Conference on Religious Legal Theory
Posted on October 30, 2009?Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field? Seton Hall University School of Law Newark, New Jersey Thursday-Friday, November 12-13, 2009Seton Hall Law School will host Religious Legal Theory: The State of the Field, a conference to assess the state of the field of religiously-informed legal theory and its contributions...
Consentual Language
Posted on October 30, 2009Janice Nadler, Northwestern University School of Law and American Bar Foundation, and J. D. Trout, Loyola University of Chicago, have published "The Language of Consent in Police Encounters," in Oxford Handbook of Linguistics and Law (L. Solan and P. Tiersma eds...
The Uses of Verbs
Posted on October 30, 2009Who said the Civil War was fought over a verb: "The United States is" or "The United States are"?Minor Myers, Brooklyn Law School, has published "Supreme Court Usage and the Making of an 'Is'," at 11 Green Bag 2d 457 (Summer 2008). Here is the abstract...
O Dracula, Where Art Thou?
Posted on October 30, 2009From MSNBC.com, why we are so fascinated with vampires. It's a thrill that's centuries old.
Word Imagery
Posted on October 29, 2009Cristina Costantini creates "word clouds" out of her writings using a program called Wordle. See examples here and here. Very neat!
Oh, That Arnold!
Posted on October 29, 2009From NPR, this story about a possible coded message from the Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to California State Assemblyman Tom Ammaino. Reporter Melissa Block asks an expert cryptographer for assistance.
The Use of Law and Literature
Posted on October 27, 2009Katie Rose Guest Pryal, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has published "Law, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Copia: A Response to Skeptics." Here is the abstract.Recently, the law and literature (L&L) enterprise has been "reassessed" by a variety of scholars, whose opinions fall loosely into two camps...
The Language of Power in Racine
Posted on October 27, 2009Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London School of Law, has published "'This Power Isn?t Power If It?s Shared': Law and Violence in Jean Racine?s 'La Thébaïde'" in volume 22 of Law & Literature (2010). Here is the abstract.The Seventeenth century witnesses the steady demise of the fragmented or overlapping power regimes that had been rooted in the European Middle Ages...
Missouri's Civil War
Posted on October 26, 2009Frank O. Bowman III, University of Missouri School of Law, is publishing "Stories of Crimes, Trials and Appeals in Civil War Era Missouri," forthcoming in the Marquette Law Review. Here is the abstract. This paper explores criminal appellate practice in Missouri from the time of statehood in 1821 until the 1870s, with particular focus on the decades before and after the Civil War...
The Law in Ancient Athens
Posted on October 26, 2009Adriaan Lanni, Harvard Law School, has published "Social Norms in the Courts of Ancient Athens," at 1 Journal of Legal Analysis 691 (Summer 2009). Here is the abstract.Ancient Athens was a remarkably peaceful and well-ordered society by both ancient and contemporary standards...
How Right (Or Wrong) Does Television Get It?
Posted on October 23, 2009From MSNBC.com, two stories about how television reflects the real world; a piece on the progress women have made in breaking through the glass ceiling since the 1970s,and a story on those interesting older woman/younger man relationships. Along the way: do anti-discrimination laws help or hurt, or have no effect? Do women flooding into the workplace eventually have the effect of flooding into the boardroom, or not?Madeleine Albright has some interesting things to say about the power of a woman's word, even if it's expressed symbolically...
The History of Branding and Trade Mark Law in the UK
Posted on October 23, 2009John Mercer is publishing "A Mark of Distinction: Branding and Trade Mark Law in the UK from the 1860s," in Business History (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.The development of branding is a neglected theme in business history. This article examines the emergence on a large scale of the unique product brand name - distinct from a company name or product descriptor - in the UK in the latter nineteenth century...
The History of Criminal Prosecutions
Posted on October 23, 2009Barry Godfrey, Keele University Department of Criminology, has published "Changing Prosecution Practices and Their Impact on Crime Figures, 1857-1940," at 48 British Journal of Criminology 171 (2008). Here is the abstract.This article examines the changes in prosecution practices and policies that shaped crime trends between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries...
Call For Papers
Posted on October 22, 2009This inter-disciplinary conference seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil...
Call For Papers: Comparative Law Workshop
Posted on October 21, 2009CALL FOR PAPERS FIFTH ANNUAL COMPARATIVE LAW WORKS IN PROGRESS WORKSHOP May 20-22, 2010 The University of Illinois College of Law Sponsored by: American Society of Comparative Law University of Illinois College of Law Princeton University Program for Law and Public Affairs Jacqueline Ross (University of Illinois College of Law), Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University, Program for Law and Public Affairs), and James Q...
The CSI Effect
Posted on October 16, 2009Diane Auer Jones discusses her recent experience on a jury and notes that "CSI"-like tv shows have much more impact on jurors' reasoning than the judge's instructions. What's going on?On this issue see also Cole, Simon A., and Dioso-Villa, Rachel, CSI and its Effects: Media, Juries, and the Burden of Proof, 41 New England Law Review --(2007)Mann, Michael D...
Interracial Relationships
Posted on October 15, 2009Jason Gillmer, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, has published "Telling Stories of Love, Sex, and Race." Here is the abstract.The history of interracial sex is often told from the perspective of either legislatures or lynch mobs. The approach has a certain appeal; it allows us to track the ideological currents of the dominant society, as they ebb and flow from passive acceptance of the practice to outright hostility...
Women and Wall Street
Posted on October 15, 2009Christine Sgarlata Chung, Albany Law School, has published "From Lily Bart to the Boom Boom Room: How Wall Street's Social and Cultural Response to Women Has Shaped Securities Regulation." Here is the abstract.In Edith Wharton?s 1905 novel House of Mirth, Lily Bart learns in one brutal moment what happens to women who get tangled up with the stock market...
Call For Papers
Posted on October 14, 2009Georgetown University Law Center, Columbia Law School, University of Southern California Center for Law, History & Culture, and UCLA School of Law invite submissions for the eighth meeting of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop to be held at USC Gould School of Law in Los Angeles on June 4 & 5, 2010...
Storytelling Across the Curriculum
Posted on October 14, 2009Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell College of Law, has published "Storytelling Across the Curriculum: From Margin to Center, from Clinic to the Classroom," as NYLS Clinical Research Institute Paper No. 09/10 #3. Here is the abstract. Narrative theory and storytelling have emerged as threads in legal scholarship steadily over the past 20 years...
Brain Science, Learning, and Narrative
Posted on October 13, 2009Lea B. Vaughn, University of Washington School of Law, has published "Feeling at Home: Learning, Law & Narrative." Here is the abstract.Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to ?grab? someone?s attention because ?better attention always equals better learning...
The Order of "Law & Order"
Posted on October 08, 2009Law & Order's Rene Balcer discusses how those "ripped from the headlines" stories make it to the small screen. An NPR interview here.
Hollywood, Women's and Children's Rights, and the News
Posted on October 01, 2009FindLaw's Marci Hamilton discusses the popular culture image of polygamy in Big Love and the reaction to the news of the arrest of director Roman Polanski here, arguing that some media can sometimes present a very particularized interpretation of child abuse and women's rights...
Documentary Films and Criminal Justice
Posted on September 28, 2009Taunya Lovell Banks, University of Maryland School of Law, has published "What Documentary Films Teach Us About the Criminal Justice System - Introduction," in volume 8 of University of Maryland Journal of Race, Religion, Gender & Class (2009). Here is the abstract...
The Impact of Civil Law On Common Law
Posted on September 28, 2009Vivian Grosswald Curren, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, has published "Voices Saved from Vanishing," at 70 University of Pittsburgh School of Law 435 (2009). Here is the abstract.Jurists Uprooted: German-speaking Émigré Lawyers in Twentieth-century Britain examines the lives of eighteen émigré lawyers and legal scholars who made their way to the United Kingdom, almost all to escape Nazism, and analyzes their impact on the development of English law...
The Third Man
Posted on September 25, 2009Shulamit Almog and Amnon Reichman, University of Haifa Faculty of Law, have published "Ethics, Aesthetics, and Law: The Third Man?s Three Prongs," at 46 Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 169-201 (2008). Here is the abstract.The chapter explores the role of law in society and its relation to ethical conflicts as reflected through the prism of the film The Third Man...
The Rhetoric of Property Law
Posted on September 24, 2009Johanna Gibson, Queen Mary University of London School of Law, has published "The Lay of the Land: The Geography of Traditional Cultural Expression," in Intellectual Property and Traditional Cultural Expressions in a Digital Environment 182-201 (C. B...
Marriage In Fine Art
Posted on September 24, 2009Benjamin A. Templin, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, has published "The Marriage Contract in Fine Art," in volume 30 of the Northern Illinois University Law Review (2009). Here is the abstract. This paper studies the depiction of the marriage contract in Dutch, French and English genre paintings from the 14th to 18th centuries...
Student Law and Film Societies in the U.S.
Posted on September 23, 2009For a listserv (the LAWPROF list) I put together some information on Law and Film Societies (not student orgs devoted to entertainment/sports/media law and career opportunities) at U.S. law schools. I'm reproducing it here. These societies have as their sole or added mission to show and discuss movies...
Function, Form, and the Criminal Law
Posted on September 22, 2009Martha Grace Duncan, Emory University School of Law, has published "Beauty in the Dark of Night; The Pleasures of Form in Criminal Law," in volume 59 of the Emory Law Journal (2010). Here is the abstract.After learning that the man she loves is the son of her 'great enemy,' Juliet goes to her window and speaks: What?s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man...
The Effects of Advertising
Posted on September 22, 2009Mark Bartholomew, University at Buffalo Law School, has published "Advertising and Social Identity." Here is the abstract. This essay takes a stand in the brewing legal academic debate over the consequences of advertising. On one side are the semiotic democratists, scholars who bemoan the ability of advertisers to take control of the meanings that they create through trademark law and other pro-business legal rules...
The Masons (Collectively, Not Perry)
Posted on September 22, 2009And on the Freemasons, suddenly hip, with the publication of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.
James Ellroy Discusses American History and Crime Writing
Posted on September 22, 2009From NPR's Morning Edition, an interview with crime writer James Ellroy, who discusses his newest novel, Blood's a Rover.
Bad Boys
Posted on September 16, 2009Randy Cohen reviews the forthcoming Emmy show this Sunday on CBS and considers whether police dramas say anything true about the world of law enforcement.
Sports Metaphors and Analogies In Judicial Opinions
Posted on September 15, 2009Douglas E. Abrams, University of Missouri School of Law, has published "Sports in the Courts: The Role of Sports References in Judicial Opinions," in Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal (forthcoming). Here is the abstract. In cases with no claims or defenses concerning sports, the Supreme Court and lower federal and state courts frequently publish opinions that draw analogies to the rules or terminology of sports familiar to broad segments of the American people...
Law and Lawyers in Post-Colonial Literature
Posted on September 15, 2009Renee Newman Knake, Michigan State University College of Law, has published "Beyond Atticus Finch: Lessons on Ethics and Morality from Lawyers and Judges in Postcolonial Literature," in volume 32 of Journal of the Legal Profession (2008). Here is the abstract...
The "House" Effect?
Posted on September 12, 2009According to this article from MSNBC.com, some "House" viewers are taking the show too seriously, which can result in demands on physicians for unnecessary exams and tests. Sounds a little like medical students, who come down with whatever disease they're studying that week in class...
"Just the Facts, Ma'am"?
Posted on September 11, 2009Kenneth D. Chestek, Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis, has published "Judging by the Numbers: An Empirical Study of the Power of Story." Here is the abstract.The recent debate about whether 'empathy' is a desirable trait in Supreme Court Justices begs a more fundamental question: are appellate court judges in fact persuaded by appeals to pathos? This article attempts to answer that question by reporting the results of an empirical study the author conducted that investigates whether narrative reasoning, or 'stories,' are persuasive to appellate judges...
Brief Writing As Story Telling
Posted on September 11, 2009Helen A. Anderson, University of Washington School of Law, has published "Stories about Storytelling: 100 Years of Brief Writing Advice." Here is the abstract.This essay looks at examples of brief writing advice from the early to mid-twentieth century...
A Conference On Law and Love
Posted on September 10, 2009From Professor Linda Meyer, Quinnipiac Law SchoolWe invite you to join us for a one-day conference on Law and Love, to be held at Quinnipiac Law School on Saturday, October 3, 2009.While some of the most significant and provocative interdisciplinary legal scholarship over the last two decades has emphasized the constitutive relation between law and violence, with this conference we hope to engender a new engagement with questions that may be said to be repressed in the concerted focus on the law-violence dyad...
Idris Elba Will Star In New BBC1 Crime Drama
Posted on September 04, 2009The Wire's Idris Elba will star in a new crime drama written by Neil Cross for BBC1. Mr. Cross describes the series, called Luther, as "an intense psychological thriller which examines not only human depravity but the complex nature of love...." The series "will turn the crime genre drama on its head," by revealing the killer at the beginning of the episode, says the BBC...
Business Law and Narrative
Posted on September 02, 2009Michigan State University College of Law is hosting a symposium on business law and film called the Business Law and Narrative Symposium. The symposium takes place in East Lansing on September 11. Here's a description.Narratives are stories. Narratives both reflect and influence society, from the broadest popular cultural viewpoints down to the private communications between individuals...
Law In Willy Wonka
Posted on September 02, 2009Jeanne C. Fromer, Fordham Law School, has published "Trade Secrecy in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory," in The Law and Theory of Trade Secrecy: A Handbook of Contemporary Research (Rochelle C. Dreyfuss and Katherine J. Strandburg eds.; Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)...
The Culinary and Contract Law
Posted on September 02, 2009Marjorie Florestal, McGeorge School of Law, has published "Is a Burrito a Sandwich? Exploring Race, Class and Culture in Contracts," in volume 14 of the Michigan Journal of Race and Law (Fall 2008). Here is the abstract.A superior court in Worcester, Massachusetts, recently determined that a burrito is not a sandwich...
Lawyers, Lawyers, Everywhere
Posted on September 02, 2009Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Florida State University College of Law, has published "There's a Pennoyer in My Foyer: Civil Procedure According to Dr. Seuss." Here is the abstract.This is what it purports to be: a Seussian take on civil procedure. It?s a short, fun essay that covers (1) the iron triangle of civil procedure - the role of lawyers, judges, and juries, and (2) prominent civil procedure doctrines, such as personal jurisdiction, Erie, pleading, discovery, joinder, and preclusion...
Chocolat and Mediation
Posted on September 02, 2009If you missed it, check out Jennifer L. Schultz's Confectionery and ConflictResolution? What Chocolat Reveals about Mediation, Negotiation Journal, July 2006, at 251. Here's the abstract.A close analysis of the film Chocolat discloses a new metaphor for themediator ? the mediator as cook...
Call For Papers
Posted on August 31, 2009Israeli Law and Society AssociationInternational ConferenceSecularism, Nationalism and Human Rights: Law and Politics in the Middle East and EuropeDecember 20-21, 2009Short descriptionSecularism as the separation between religion and politics, nationalism as the ethnic premise of the modern state, and human rights, are commonly identified as fundamental attributes of modern law and politics...
Happy Birthday, Johann Wolfgang
Posted on August 28, 2009Happy Birthday to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born this day in 1749, died March 22, 1832. Goethe was the son of a lawyer, and studied law in Leipzig as a young man. Legal themes abound in his major work Faust. Check out this site for more about him.
A Popular German Crime Drama
Posted on August 27, 2009Michael Kimmelman examines the popular German police drama Tatort (Crime Scene) for the New York Times here. Notes Mr. Kimmelman,?Tatort? is a little akin to what Johnny Carson's ?Tonight Show? was in America. It?s one of those modest pop-culture symbols and long-standing common experiences that can be hard for outsiders to translate but that speak to, and of, a nation...
Dominick Dunne Dies
Posted on August 27, 2009Writer Dominick Dunne has died. Mr. Dunne was the author of a number of popular novels taking society and crime as their theme, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, A Season in Purgatory, and An Inconvenient Woman. He wrote regularly for Vanity Fair. Here is more from the New York Times and from Newsday about Mr...
Academic Fiction
Posted on August 26, 2009In her current column in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Mentor discusses some academic novels of note, including those that kill off some of the more notorious characters we've all run across in our years (short or long) going around in academic circles...
Law, Popular Culture, and The Wizard of Oz
Posted on August 25, 2009MSNBC.com has this interesting article on the influence of L. Frank Baum's classic The Wizard of Oz and its iconic characters on popular culture. That Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard, and the Witches, good and bad, still have the power to transport us is fairly clear, even after seventy years, but how many of us analyze the law in that classic tale?As it turns out, some people do...
Call For Papers/Abstracts/Submissions
Posted on August 25, 20098th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 13 - 16, 2010 Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa and Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel Honolulu Hawaii, USASince many people have individually asked for an extension of the submission deadline, we are extending the deadline for submissions to Saturday, September 12th, 2009...
NBC Tries Out "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer"
Posted on August 24, 2009NBC has ordered a pilot of the legal drama offered up by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson. "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer" is the second try at a legal series by the Peacock Network, which passed on the David E. Kelley-created "Legally Mad" last year.
Call For Papers
Posted on August 21, 2009From Professor Andrew Majeske, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal JusticeCall For Papers Second Biennial Literature and Law Conference When: April 16, 2010 (Friday)Where: John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) (59th Street and 10th Avenue?near Lincoln Center in Manhattan) Conference Organizer and Contact Person: Andrew Majeske, This conference aims to bring scholars of literature and law into an interdisciplinary setting to share the fruits of their research and scholarship...
Publication Opportunities
Posted on August 21, 2009From Professor Andrew Majeske, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal JusticeManuscripts SoughtThe Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Literature and Law Fairleigh Dickinson University Press invites the submission of proposals for books, monographs, or essay collections in the interdisciplinary field of literature and law...
Fall 2009 TV Discussed On NPR's "Talk of the Nation"
Posted on August 20, 2009Talk of the Nation has this feature on fall's shows.
Iconographies of Crime
Posted on August 18, 2009Russell D. Covey, Georgia State University College of Law, has published "Criminal Madness: Cultural Iconography and Insanity," in volume 61 (2009) of the Stanford Law Review. Here is the abstract. Law relies on a well-developed and constantly evolving iconography to tell its stories...
LatCrit Conference Scheduled For October 1-4
Posted on August 17, 2009From Anthony Varona, American University School of LawIn case you have not yet received it, here is the full preliminary conference schedule for LatCrit XIV and the LatCrit/SALT New Faculty Development Workshop in Washington, October 1 through 4, hosted by American U...
Writing Domestic Violence Scholarship
Posted on August 15, 2009Lively discussion between Nancy Lemon and Christina Hoff Sommers over Myths or Facts in Feminist Scholarship? in The Chronicle Review.
And the Beat Goes On
Posted on August 14, 2009The latest craze: "auto-tuning" the news, courtesy of Antares Audio Technologies. Here's a clip from CNN. The creators include social commentary in their tune-ups, creating clips one can then deconstruct. Included here is part of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech...
New Film From Women Make Movies
Posted on August 11, 2009From Women Make MoviesWMM NEW RELEASE! MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER A new film about a young Malian mother's fight with the U.S. legal system to protect her daughter from female genital mutilation"Heart-wrenching testament to the integrity and solidarity of women in the face of staggering adversity...
Star Trek Time: Ethics In Space
Posted on August 11, 2009The New York Times has an interview with NASA bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe here.
Call For Papers
Posted on August 10, 2009Call for Papers: ?Ah Got De Law in My Mouth?: Black Women Writing Justice41st Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)April 7-11, 2010Montreal, Quebec - Hilton BonaventureThis panel seeks papers which consider the representation of law, rights, and justice in African-American women?s literature...
Call For Papers; Conference
Posted on August 09, 2009From Susan Sage HeinzelmanFor details on the joint conference from Dec 2 to Dec 5th 2009, in brisbane, Australia, and the call for papers, please see:http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/translegalityand http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/translegality/call-for-papers
Fellowship Opportunity
Posted on August 09, 2009From Susan Sage HeinzelmanLaw & Society Post-doctoral Fellowship2010-11 Academic YearInstitute for Legal Studies ? University of Wisconsin Law School~~~ Application Deadline: January 8, 2010 ~~~ Eligibility: While non-U.S. citizens may apply, this fellowship is intended for early career scholars who plan to compete for a University teaching position in the U...
Fellowship Opportunity: Digital Humanities Centers
Posted on August 07, 2009From Fiona Barrett, Director, HASTAC Scholars Fellowships at Digital Humanities Centers: The NEH is sponsoring a number of Fellowships that will be take place at Digital Humanities Centers. Dante Noto, the Associate Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), has graciously offered to work with one applicant to apply for this NEH grant...
Call For Papers
Posted on August 07, 2009Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 13 - 16, 2010 Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa and Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel Honolulu Hawaii, USASubmission Deadline: August 21, 2009Sponsored by:University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban NeighborhoodsWeb address: http://www...
Some New Law Related Drama Series Possible For Fall, Mid-Season
Posted on August 06, 2009More legal and law-related drama promised from the USA Network. The series under development include Hotel Dix, about a hotel detective (hence the name); Facing Kate, about "a mediator from a family of corporate lawyers"; a pair of series about amateur sleuths, Gourmet Detective, featuring a culinary detective, and Busy Bodies, about a "soccer mom" and her friend, a "gay dad", who solve mysteries; Good Cop, Bad Cop, about siblings in law enforcement; and another legal drama, Louise Candell...
Brave New World To Be a Brave New Film?
Posted on August 06, 2009From Steven Zeitchick's Risky Biz Blog, this news: Ridley Scott is making a film out of Aldous Huxley's iconic novel Brave New World. His partner: Leonardo di Caprio. The pair are working out of Universal Studios. More here.
The Geography of Crime; Crime and Reality TV
Posted on August 06, 2009Found while I was looking for something else:Lisa Kadonaga, Strange Countries and Secret Worlds in Ruth Rendell's Crime Novels, 88 Geographical Review 413-428 (July 1998). If you're interested in crime, gender, and reality TV, here's something of interest:Gray Cavender, Lisa Bond-Maupin, and Nancy C...
The Influence of Early Literary Theorists On Legal Writers
Posted on August 04, 2009Stephen E. Smith, Santa Clara University, ha spublished "The Poetry of Persuasion: Early Literary Theory and Its Advice to Legal Writers," in volume 6 of the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (2009). Here is the abstract.This article will address the possibility and necessity of aesthetic pleasure as a part of persuasive endeavors...
The Logic of Legal Language
Posted on July 31, 2009Eric Engle, Harvard University Law School, has published "Language, Logic, and Law: Death of Reason or Dearth of Reasons?" Here is the abstract.This article outlines a theory of language logic and law. First, it presents a theory of truth as a correspondence between a material fact and a description of that fact...
Call for Papers
Posted on July 31, 2009The 9th International Roundtable for Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2010), 3-6 September 2010 - Pozna?Legal Rules, Moral Norms AND Democratic PrinciplesConveners:Adam Mickiewicz University Pozna?, University of ?ód?, Pozna?skie Towarzystwo Przyjació? NaukConference Venue:Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University & PTPN, Pozna?Honorary Chairmen:Prof...
The Eternal Life of Vampires
Posted on July 31, 2009Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan on why vampires live forever.
Call For Papers
Posted on July 29, 2009******************************************************************************Call for Papers******************************************************************************Justice, Media and PublicChanging Public Perceptions in the New Media LandscapeResearch Institute for Law, Politics and JusticeKeele University, 25-26 March 2010******************************************************************************Confirmed keynote speakers:His Honour Judge Keith Cutler, Chairman of the Judges? Council Committee on CommunicationsOlga Kavran, Spokeswoman to the Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The HagueJoshua Rozenberg, Freelance journalist, former BBC legal correspondent and former legal editor of the Daily TelegraphDaniel Stepniak, Associate Professor, University of Western Australia, author of Audio-visual Coverage of Courts: A Comparative Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 2008)...
Women's Memoirs
Posted on July 28, 2009From History Today: Julie Peakman writes about "blaming and shaming in whore's memoirs." Men may have had power, but women often got the last laugh. Says Dr. Peakman, Just as the exploits of the likes of Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Charlotte Church fill today?s gossip magazines, notorious 18th-century women frequently found themselves in the limelight for their emotional outbursts, drunken revellings or pub brawls...
The Allure of Alcohol in the Newest Harry Potter Flick
Posted on July 28, 2009The New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope discusses the flood of alcohol in the newest Harry Potter movie.Previous Harry Potter movies have shown drinking, but this one takes it to a new level. In one scene, Harry, Ron and Hermione order butterbeers at the pub, and Hermione ends up with a frothy mustache...
GLAAD: HBO Features More Gay, Bi, Transgender Characters On Its Shows Than Other Networks
Posted on July 27, 2009The AP reports on a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) study that found that HBO features more gay, bisexual, and transgender characters on its series than any other network. The survey looked at original primetime series on ten cable and the five major networks, more than 6000 hours of original programming...
And In the Role of Hamlet's Dad...
Posted on July 23, 2009From the ABA site, this piece by Debra Cassens Weiss, noting that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer made his acting debut as the Ghost in Hamlet, during a conference on Shakespeare and the Law. (I assume that's Hamlet's father's ghost, BTW, not Banquo's ghost)...
The Top Twenty Five TV Legal Dramas
Posted on July 23, 2009The ABA features the Top Twenty-Five Lawyer Shows, as chosen by a jury of 12 (of course!) here. Says its news release:Perry Mason always came out on top, but ?L.A. Law? bested Mason as the number-one pick among lawyers for the ?25 Greatest Legal TV Shows? in the August issue of ABA Journal...
The ABA's Ed Adams On NPR
Posted on July 23, 2009NPR has a great interview with Ed Adams, editor and publisher of the ABA Journal, who discusses the 25 Top TV Legal Shows here.
Call For Stories
Posted on July 22, 2009From Nancy Levit, Professor of Law, UMKCUMKC Law Review ?One-L Revisited? Law Stories ContestIntroduction by Scott TurowWith stories by:Ian AyresPamela BridgewaterAlafair BurkeStephen CarterAndrew McClurgMarc PoirierDeborah PostLisa PruittSaira RaoJeffrey RosenCameron StracherRobert R...
Law, Literature, and Presidential Advice
Posted on July 22, 2009Harold H. Bruff's new book Bad Advice: Bush's Lawyers in the War on Terror (University of Kansas Press, 2009) begins with a chapter that should delight law and humanities devotees. It discusses some famous political advisors in literature and their interactions with their leaders: for example, Shakespeare's Archbishop of Canterbury and Henry V, and Robert Bolt's Sir (or Saint--it depends on whether or not you're Catholic, I suppose) Thomas More and Henry VIII...
Call For Participation: ASLCH Conference
Posted on July 22, 2009From Keith Bybee, Syracuse University School of LawCall for Participation: 13th Annual ASLCH ConferenceMarch 19-20, 2010Brown University, Providence, Rhode IslandThe Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities is an organization of scholars engaged in interdisciplinary, humanistic legal scholarship...
Atlas Shrugged To Be Filmed?
Posted on July 21, 2009From the Risky Biz Blog comes news that Ayn Rand's meganovel, Atlas Shrugged, might finally be headed for the big screen with Charlize Theron in the role of Dagny Taggart. Reporter Steven Zeitchik notes that an option with the Rand estate runs out next year so Lionsgate, MGM, and Viacom/Paramount seem to be trying to make this project happen.
Bewere!
Posted on July 20, 2009NPR on the current flock (herd?) of werewolves.For more about werewolves, see Werewolves in Literature.
New Film About Women Judges and Attorneys in South Africa
Posted on July 20, 2009Courting Justice, a new film from Women Make Movies, may interest readers of the Law and Humanities Blog. Here's the description.From tyranny to democracy. Fourteen years after the defeat of apartheid, South Africa?s fledgling democracy is acclaimed for its constitutional promise of comprehensive human rights and unprecedented judicial reform...
Silver Gavels Awards Coverage From DC
Posted on July 17, 2009Coverage of the ABA's Silver Gavels Awards via Legal Bisnow. [Full disclosure: I'm a member of the ABA's Gavel Awards Screening Committee].
Canadian Legal Norms On Film
Posted on July 17, 2009Ed Morgan, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has published "The Mild, Mild West: Living by a Code in Canadian Law and Film," at 2 Law, Culture, and the Humanities 115-135 (2006).Canadians live by the rules. If the overriding myth of American history is that of rugged individualism and the conquest of the frontier, the story told of Canada is one of socialized, orderly engagement with and development of the north...
Perry Mason Babies
Posted on July 16, 2009In yesterday's New York Times, Alessandra Stanley discusses Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's mention of the fictional Perry Mason as an influence on her. Newly sworn Senator Al Franken also noted that as a child, he liked watching Mason (as played by Raymond Burr) hunt down the real perpetrator of the crime of which his innocent client was accused...
The Death of Law
Posted on July 16, 2009Lance McMillian, John Marshall Law School (Atlanta) has published "The Death of Law: A Cinematic Vision," forthcoming in the University of Arkansas (Little Rock) Law Review. Here is the abstract. Three recent films ? Children of Men, V for Vendetta, and Minority Report ? sound a warning call by painting stark and contrasting visions of life in the United States and Great Britain in the 21st century...
Equity In Law and Literature
Posted on July 16, 2009Gary Watt, Reader and Associate Professor in Law, School of Law, University of Warwick, and an editor of the journal Law and Humanities, has published Equity Stirring:The Story of Justice Beyond Law (Hart Publishing). Here's an abstract.Sir Frederick Pollock wrote that 'English-speaking lawyers ...
Fans, Take Note!
Posted on July 07, 2009Amazon is now taking orders for both season 1 and the complete set of DVDs of Ally McBeal.
A Review of James Boyd White's Living Speech
Posted on July 06, 2009Zachary R. Calo, Valparaiso University School of Law, has published "Law, Language and Love: James Boyd White's Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force," in the Journal of Law, Philosophy, and Culture (forthcoming). Here is the abstract. A review essay considering James Boyd White's, Living Speech...
Themes of Justice and Ethics in Langston Hughes
Posted on July 03, 2009Robert L. Tsai, American University College of Law, has published "Langston Hughes: The Ethics of Melancholy Citizenship." Here is the abstract. As a body of work, the poetry of Langston Hughes presents a vision of how members of a political community ought to comport themselves, particularly when politics yield few tangible solutions to their problems...
National Security TV
Posted on July 01, 2009Dawinder S. Sidhu, Hosh Law, has published "Wartime America and The Wire: A Response to Posner?s Post-9/11 Constitutional Framework." Here is the abstract. Pragmatists subscribe to the view that an individual?s practical experiences shape and inform an individual?s concept of the law...
Intellectual Property and the Meaning of Culture
Posted on June 24, 2009Katya Assaf III has published "The Dilution of Culture and the Law of Trademarks" in volume 49 of IDEA: The Journal of Law and Technology (2008). Here is the abstract. The cultural meaning of a trademark is built up by creating associative links between the mark and various positive cultural signs such as freedom, youth and happiness...
Online Archive of British Newspapers Now Available
Posted on June 18, 2009The British Library is making available an important archive of nineteenth century papers at British Newspapers 1800-1900. Read more here.
New From Susan Jacoby
Posted on June 18, 2009A book on the Alger Hiss case: Alger Hiss and the Battle for History (Yale University Press, 2009).
Enabling "Tagging" and Other Art Forms
Posted on June 18, 2009Randall P. Bezanson, University of Iowa College of Law, and Andrew Finkelman have published "Trespassory Art," in volume 43 of the University of Michigan Journal of Reform (2010). Here is the abstract. The history of art is replete with examples of artists who have broken from existing conventions and genres, redefining the meaning of art and its function in society...
Privacy and the Limits of History
Posted on June 18, 2009Neil M. Richards, Washington University School of Law, has published "Privacy and the Limits of History," in volume 21 of the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities (2009). Here is the abstract. A short review essay of Lawrence Friedman's "Guarding Life's Dark Secrets: Legal and Social Controls over Reputation, Propriety, and Privacy" (Stanford Press 2007)...
Who Set the Fire?
Posted on June 17, 2009Cokesbury College, a small Methodist institution in Maryland, burned to the ground in December 1795, and the cause was probably arson. But who set the fire, and why? Until now, no one had uncovered a plausible explanation. But a senior majoring in history and anthropology, Bonnie J...
Non-Profits and Self-Regulation: A Case Study
Posted on June 16, 2009Edward Balleisen, Duke University, Department of History, has published "Private Cops on the Fraud Beat: The Limits of American Business Self-Regulation, 1895?1932." Here is the abstract. From the late 1890s through the 1920s, a new set of nonprofit, business-funded organizations spearheaded an American campaign against commercial duplicity...
The Influence of Cicero
Posted on June 16, 2009Mortimer Newlin Stead Sellers, University of Baltimore School of Law, has published "The Influence on Marcus Tullius Cicero on Modern Legal and Political Ideas," in Ciceroniana, the Atti of Colloquium Tullianum Anni (2008). Here is the abstract. Marcus Tullius Cicero is the father of modern law and politics...
Call for Papers
Posted on June 15, 2009From the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, announcement of a Call for Papers for a Special Issue. Submit abstracts to the editors of the special issue, Jan Engberg Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University: je@asb.dk Kirsten Wølch Rasmussen, Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University: kwr@asb...
Getting Published
Posted on June 11, 2009The manager of the acquisitions department for the University of Michigan Press suggests that women authors need to "get more aggressive" about approaching presses with their manuscripts and she offers suggestions on just how to do that. Read Ellen Bauerle's essay on getting your work in front of acquisitive eyes here.
Assessing the Law and Literature Movement
Posted on June 11, 2009Paul J. Heald, University of Georgia Law School, has published "The Death of Law and Literature," as UGA Legal Studies Research Paper No. 09-006. Here is the abstract.Thirty years after the publication of James B. White's iconic THE LEGAL IMAGINATION, Law & Literature scholarship has gained no traction in the practice of law...
A New Book On Lawyers and Television
Posted on June 09, 2009Newly published: Lawyers in Your Living Room! Law on Television (Michael Asimow, ed., Chicago: ABA, 2009).Actors Sam Waterston (I'll Fly Away) and James Woods (Shark) have contributed forewords to this new collection of essays on lawyers, law shows and the craft of writing legal dramas and comedies...
Salinger Sues Over a Sequel
Posted on June 09, 2009Ron Rosenbaum comments for Slate on the J. D. Salinger lawsuit over 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye here.
More On the Norms of Comedy
Posted on June 09, 2009Jennifer E. Rothman, Loyola of Los Angeles Law School, has published "Custom, Comedy and the Value of Dissent," at 95 Virginia Law School In Brief 19 (2009). Here is the In this essay, I comment on Dotan Oliar and Christopher Sprigman's article, There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy, 94 Va...
Word Play
Posted on June 08, 2009Cartalk.com promoted a great new website last Saturday, Craig Damrauer's More New Math, which is word play for those of us who prefer not to return to those thrilling days of yesterday when 1 plus 2 equals something other than 3 (don't ask me, I never did get it)...
Women and the First Amendment
Posted on June 08, 2009Amy M. Adler, New York University, School of Law, has published "Medusa: A Glimpse of the Woman in First Amendment Law," forthcoming in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. Here is the abstract. In this Article, I attempt to solve a First Amendment puzzle by turning to a surprising source...
How Much Do a Judge's Words Affect a Juror's Verdict?
Posted on June 03, 2009Christopher Terranova, New York University School of Law, has published Loaded Words in the Courtroom. Here is the abstract. A few judges recently have banned words like victim from their courtroom, concerned that the defendant will be prejudiced...
Textbook Cover Images and Law
Posted on June 03, 2009Sarah Beresford, University of Lancaster, has published Judging a Book by its Cover The Deployment (and) Unsettling of Familial Images on Family Law Textbook Covers , forthcoming in the Griffith Law Review. Here is the abstract.An individual's legal identity can be constituted by a multitude of often-complex notions, and is not necessarily of their own construction...
Comedy Is Easy, Dying Is Hard
Posted on June 03, 2009Actor Mike Doyle explains how to die effectively on camera.
Judge Sotomayor and Nancy Drew
Posted on June 03, 2009Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer discussed Nancy Drew with Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md). Both apparently remember the titian-haired eighteen-year-old detective from River Heights fondly, as do a lot of us. I had nearly all the Nancy Drew books, and read and re-read them avidly, although as I got older, I also read the Hardy Boys, which I liked for the mysteries (I thought the female characters were pretty useless though)...
Re-Examining Star Trek
Posted on May 30, 2009In his review essay on Star Trek: The Exhibition, Edward Rothstein points out a number of anachronisms and anamolies, most stemming from the original television series and its spin-offs. He notes that mixing reality and pop culture may do neither justice...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Birthday
Posted on May 29, 2009The late John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917. His representation in popular culture is ubiquitous. Think of movies that dramatize events from his presidency such as The Missiles of October (1974)in which William Devane played JFK, A Woman Named Jackie (1991)(Stephen Collins), Thirteen Days (2000)(Bruce Greenwood), and the one that started them all, PT 109 (1963)(Cliff Robertson)...
Happy Birthday, G. K. Chesterton
Posted on May 29, 2009Happy birthday to G. K. Chesterton, born May 29, 1879, author of the Father Brown stories, and The Man Who Was Thursday, as well as works of philosophy, literary criticism, history, and social critique, many of which few people read any more. Get re-acquainted with him by visiting these sites:The American Chesterton SocietyG...
Art Vandalism
Posted on May 29, 2009M. J. Williams has published Framing Art Vandalism: A Proposal to Address Violence Against Art in volume 74 of the Brooklyn Law Review (2009). Here is the abstract.The first law journal treatment of art vandalism, this Note considers intentional attacks on art works, primarily in museums and public galleries, and how existing laws fail to address much less control the crime...
Call For Papers
Posted on May 26, 2009From Penelope Andrews, Professor of Law, Valparaiso University School of LawCALL FOR PAPERS - Law and Literature Association of Australia and Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand joint conference 2 to 5 December 2009, Trans(l)egalité...
Imperialism, Nationalism, and "Cymbeline"
Posted on May 22, 2009Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London, School of Law, has published Imperialism and Nationalism in Early Modernity: The 'Cosmopolitan' and the 'Provincial' in Shakespeare?s Cymbeline, in volume 18 of Journal of Social and Legal Studies (2009). Here is the abstract...
Call For Papers
Posted on May 22, 2009From Jessica Silbey, Suffolk University:LAW AND JUSTICE ON THE SMALL SCREENInvitation to ContributorsWe are compiling a collection of essays by leading scholars from the world of law and popular culture focusing on the theme of law and justice on television...
Women Attorneys and Their Image
Posted on May 22, 2009From Concurring Opinions, this post from Deven Desai discussing a Law.com article about what some judges think about how women lawyers dress.
Call For Papers
Posted on May 21, 20098th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 13 - 16, 2010 Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa and Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel Honolulu Hawaii, USASubmission Deadline: August 21, 2009(Submit well in advance of the above deadline and take advantage of our NEW low early bird registration rate...
New Legal Dramas For the Fall/Mid Season
Posted on May 21, 2009Greedy Associates, the blog for FindLaw, posts about new legal dramas for fall and midseason. CBS promises us The Good Wife and ABC The Deep End.
Of Deism and Douglas Firs
Posted on May 20, 2009Jessie Hill, Case Western Reserve School of Law, has published Of Christmas Trees and Corpus Christi: Ceremonial Deism and Change in Meaning over Time, in volume 59 of Duke Law Journal (2010). Here is the abstract.Although the Supreme Court turned away an Establishment Clause challenge to the words ?under God? in the Pledge of Allegiance in Elk Grove Unified School District v...
Imagining Law and Rights
Posted on May 20, 2009John C. Gooch, University of Texas, Dallas, School of Arts & Humanities, has published Imagining the Law and the Constitution of Societal Order in Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker?s 1965 'Crime and the Great Society' Address. Here is the abstract...
Defamation Through History
Posted on May 19, 2009From The Irish Times, via the blog Cearta.ie: a musing on the "gist" or "sting" of a defamatory statement.
Angels, Demons, and Physics
Posted on May 19, 2009Some physicists view the new Tom Hanks/Dan Brown thriller Angels & Demons as great publicity for their profession. Read more here in a Chronicle of Higher Education article.
Race, Property, and Gambling in Mark Twain
Posted on May 18, 2009While I was looking for something else on SSRN, I came across this interesting paper by Naomi Reed.Naomi Reed, Columbia University, The Wagers of Whiteness, The Wagers of Blackness Gambling and Race in Pudd'nhead Wilson . Here is the abstract."The Wagers of Whiteness, The Wagers of Blackness" analyzes the late nineteenth-century erosion of African Americans' newly acquired citizenship rights by turning to the relationship between gambling, property, and slavery in Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)...
When Agencies Collide
Posted on May 18, 2009If there's securities malfeasance, or should that be misfeasance--in a tv storyline should the SEC, the FTC, or the FCC be concerned? Or should we just pop some more popcorn, get out the soda pop (I'm not disclosing my favorite brand) and enjoy?Elena Marty-Nelson, Nova Southeastern University Law Center, writes about Securities Laws in Soap Operas and Telenovelas: Are All My Children Engaged in Securities Fraud? at 18 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 329 (2009)...
"There Oughta Be a Law!" A Scholar Re-Examines Fairy Tale History
Posted on May 18, 2009The Chronicle of Higher Education's Jennifer Howard writes about Ruth B. Bottigheimer, whose works on the origins of fairy tales have other scholars up in arms.
Gender, Copyright, and Filk Literature
Posted on May 14, 2009Melissa L. Tatum, University of Arizona College of Law, Robert E. Spoo, University of Tulsa College of Law, and Benjamin Pope, University of Arizona, have published Does Gender Influence Attitudes toward Copyright in the Filk Community? as Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No...
In the Journals
Posted on May 13, 2009In the most current issue of Law, Culture, and the Humanities (volume 5, issue 2, 2009): A number of Commentaries on the subject of "Critical Perspectives on Political Liberalism," including essays by Paul A. Passavant, Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, Jennet Kirkpatrick, Stewart Motha, and Richard A...
Paul Ricoeur and Legal Hermeneutics
Posted on May 13, 2009George H. Taylor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, has published The Distinctiveness of Legal Hermeneutics, in Ricoeur Across the Disciplines (Scott Davidson ed.; The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009). Here is the abstract. In the larger field of hermeneutics, legal hermeneutics is characteristically described as exemplary...
Shakespeare on Today's Financial Crisis
Posted on May 08, 2009Nate Oman writes about the current financial crisis and the Merchant of Venice over at Concurring Opinions. Professor Oman begins, "Over the weekend, I re-read A Merchant of Venice, and I was struck by the fact that Shakespeare manages to include in the play virtually every element of the current financial crisis...
Building a Race Law Canon
Posted on May 08, 2009Rachel F. Moran, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law; University of California, Irvine, Law School, and Devon W. Carbado, University of California, Los Angeles, Law School, have published Introduction: The Story of Law and American Racial Consciousness--Building a Canon One Case at a Time, in Race Law Stories (2008)...
Choosing Words Carefully
Posted on May 08, 2009Brian Bix, University of Minnesota Law School, has published Law and Language: How Words Mislead Us. Here is the abstract. This talk was the Reappointment Lecture for the Frederick W. Thomas Chair in the Interdisciplinary Study of Law and Language at the University of Minnesota...
The Black Man as Hero in Film
Posted on May 08, 2009Gretchen Bakke, Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University, has published How the Black Guys Got to Kill All the White Guys and Still Be Good: An Essay on the Changing Dynamics of Race in American Action Cinema. Here is the abstract.There was a time, not so long ago, when a black man - a good black man - killing a white man in an action movie was tentatively accomplished...
Law, Language, and Scientific Rhetoric in Judicial Opinions
Posted on May 08, 2009Colin P. Starger, New York University School of Law, has published The DNA of an Argument: A Case Study in Legal Logos, in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Winter 2009). Here is the abstract.This article develops an original rhetorical framework for analyzing the logic of legal arguments and then applies it to unpack a post-conviction DNA testing controversy currently before the Supreme Court...
Control, Alt, Delete: J. J. Abrams Reboots the Star Trek Franchise For a New Generation
Posted on May 08, 2009Manohla Dargis reviews the new Star Trek film for the New York Times here.
Call For Papers
Posted on May 08, 2009Call For PapersInternational Annual Meeting of Israeli Law and Society Association, to be held in Tel Aviv on December 20-21, 2009.The main theme of the meeting is: Secularism, Nationalism and Human Rights: Law and Politics in the Middle East and EuropeProposals should be submitted to Michal Locker-Eshed, minerva@post...
Call For Papers: Critical Legal Conference 2009
Posted on May 06, 2009Critical Legal Conference 2009"Genealogies: Excavating Legal Modernity"September 11-13, 2009Leicester, UKwww.le.ac.uk/law/clc2009Keynote Speaker: Marcela Iacub (EHESS/CNRS).Plenary Panellists: Peter Fitzpatrick (Birkbeck), Colin Gordon (Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust) and Véronique Voruz (Leicester)...
When the Fans Take Over: Star Trek and Fan Fiction
Posted on May 06, 2009From Newsweek's latest issue, a discussion of Star Trek's fan fiction, referred to as "slash fiction," here.
Marilyn French Dies
Posted on May 06, 2009Marilyn French, author of the 1977 bestseller The Women's Room has died at the age of 79. Her last novel will be published this fall. Read more here in a BBC article.
Gender and Stereotypes in Literature
Posted on May 06, 2009Asha S. [sic], MEASS College, has published Reading Lolita in Tehran: Rehashing Orientalist Stereotypes, at 4 The Icfai University Journal of English Studies 47(March 2009). Here is the abstract. Popular narratives produced from the west, particularly since 9/11, perpetuate negative stereotypes about Middle Eastern Muslim women...
En Garde! Van Gogh, Gauguin, and That Missing Ear
Posted on May 05, 2009Did Van Gogh really slice off his ear? More than 120 years later, a new book claims to set the record straight, and inform us that the famous earlessness was really the result of battery inflicted by fellow artist Paul Gauguin, a noted swordsman. Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans set forth their theory in a new tome called In Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, Read more here and here...
Teaching Law and Literature: Various Approaches Across the Curriculum
Posted on May 04, 2009Simon Stern, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has published Literary Evidence and Legal Aesthetics, in Teaching Literature and Law (Austin Sara, Matthew Anderson & Cathrine Frank eds., NY: MLA, 2010)(MLA Approaches To Teaching Series). Here is the abstract...
The Art of Pun-ditry
Posted on April 28, 2009Too good to overlook, and because I disagree with those who think puns are a lower form of intellectual life; I think good puns require esprit. Check out Joseph Tartakovsky's Pun For the Ages, in the New York Times (March 28, 2009). Mr. Tartakovsky is a law student...
More On the "CSI Effect"
Posted on April 27, 2009Here's more on the "CSI Effect." Tamara Francita Lawson, St. Thomas University School of Law, has published Before the Verdict and Beyond the Verdict: The 'CSI Infection' within Modern Criminal Jury Trials. Here is the abstract. In criminal law, the term CSI Effect commonly refers to the perceived impact that the CSI television show has on juror expectation and unexpected jury verdicts...
The Many Meanings of Elvis
Posted on April 24, 2009Sharon Cowan has published The Elvis We Deserve: The Social Regulation of Sex/Gender and Sexuality Through Cultural Representations of 'the King' as a Working Paper. Here is the abstract.This paper analyses the way in which the image, masculinity and sexual identity of Elvis Presley have been recently culturally deployed by particular social groups...
On the American Trial
Posted on April 23, 2009Robert P. Burns, Northwestern University School of Law, has published The Death of the American Trial (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Here's an abstract from SSRN. This short essay is a summary of my assessment of the meaning of the "vanishing trial" phenomenon...
Fan Fiction and the RDR Books Decision
Posted on April 22, 2009Megan L. Richardson, University of Melbourne Law School, and David Tan have published The Art of Retelling: Harry Potter and Copyright in a Fan-Literature Era as 14 Media & Arts Law Review 31 (2009). Here is the abstract.Simple assertions that fans are harmless may be belied by the copyright cases threatened and launched by authors of popular fictional works, against fans who write secondary works based on distinctive elements of the original stories...
Happy Birthday, Bill
Posted on April 21, 2009On April 23, discover your inner Shakespeare. CNN suggests these websites for further inspiration: Talk Like Shakespeare and The Shakespeare Insults Generator.
A Small Texas Town, A Big Screen Film, and a Hard American Truth
Posted on April 17, 2009NPR has this story about the truth behind the film American Violet, premiering this month. American Violet dramatizes an ill-conceived raid on some black residents of the town of Hearne, Texas (name changed in the movie), and the aftermath of the raid...
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Dies
Posted on April 16, 2009Eve Sedgwick, the literary theorist, has died. Here is an article from the New York Times discussing her life and legacy.
Symposium In Honor of J. Allen Smith at Rutgers School of Law (Newark)
Posted on April 16, 2009From Jessica Silbey:The Law & Humanities Institute is pleased to sponsor a symposium celebrating the memory of J. Allen Smith, outstanding property professor and Law and Humanities visionary who created the Institute over 30 years ago. The event, hosted by Rutgers School of Law ? Newark in conjunction with its 100th birthday celebration, will begin with a welcome dinner and reception on Thursday, April 23rd and run through Saturday, April 25th...
Marcus Garvey and Legal Narrative
Posted on April 09, 2009Justin Hansford, Georgetown University Law Center, has published Jailing a Rainbow: Death by Narrative and the Marcus Garvey Case , in volume 2 of Georgetown Journal of Modern Critical Race Perspectives (2009). Here is the abstract.The relevance of narrative in the law continues to reemerge in legal scholarship...
Call For Papers
Posted on April 04, 2009Call for Contributions Law, Language and Discourse Editors: Anne Wagner (Université du Littoral Côte d?Opale), Jixian Pang (Zhejiang University) & Le Cheng (City University of Hong Kong) - Publisher: Zhejiang University Press Submission guidelines and timelineExpression of interest should be addressed by e-mail both to valwagnerfr@yahoo...
Shakespeare's Historical Plays
Posted on April 02, 2009Eric Heinze, Queen Mary, University of London School of Law, has published "Power Politics and the Rule of Law: Shakespeare's First Historical Tetralogy and Law's Foundations," at 29 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 139-168 (2009). Here is the abstract...
Call For Participation
Posted on April 01, 2009Global Harmony and the Rule of Law24th IVR World CongressSpecial Workshop no. 28:Law and LiteratureCoordinator:Enrico PattaroHonorary President of ISLL ? Italian Society for Law and LiteratureE-mail: cirsfid.lawandliterature@unibo.itIn collaboration with:Carla Faralli, ISLL PresidentM...
How To Get Published--Or Not
Posted on April 01, 2009Via Electratig, and then on little cat feet to Legal History Blog, I came across this gem: Brian Morton's L'Isle de Gilligan. Mr. Morton was then Dissent's book review editor, and the piece appeared in Dissent in 1990 with the title "How Not to Write for Dissent...
Conference Of Interest At Cardozo
Posted on April 01, 2009Cardozo Law School is hosting a program called "In Flagrante Depicto: A Program on Film In/On Trial." It runs May 7-8. PRAWFSBLAWG provides a link to the program here.
Television and Torture
Posted on March 27, 2009Bev Clucas, University of Hull School of Law, has published "24 and Torture," in Torture: Moral Absolutes and Ambiguities (B. Clucas, G. Johnstone and T Ward eds.; Nomos: Baden-Baden, 2009). Here is the abstract. In this chapter, I explore and reflect on the underlying themes concerning torture and legitimate action in 24...
What's In a Name? Maybe a Judgeship
Posted on March 24, 2009Bentley Coffey, Clemson University, and Patrick A. McLaughlin, George Mason University, Mercatus Center, have published, "From Lawyer to Judge: Advancement, Sex, and Name-Calling." Here is the abstract. This paper provides the first empirical test of the Portia Hypothesis: females with masculine monikers are more successful in legal careers...
Announcement of Faculty Development Initiative
Posted on March 24, 2009From Ileana Porras, Brown UniversityInternational Affairs at Brown University is proud to announce the launch of an exciting new faculty development initiative, the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI). The objective of the program is to provide a platform for promising young faculty from the Global South and emerging economies to engage in a high level and sustained intellectual and policy dialogue with leading scholars in their fields, and to foster scholarly networks among young faculty, while providing them with an opportunity to develop their scholarship agendas...
Conference Announcement
Posted on March 23, 2009Sixth Annual IP/Gender: Mapping the ConnectionsFemale Fan Culture and Intellectual PropertyAmerican University Washington College of Law?s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Women and the Law Program, and Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law in collaboration with American University's Center for Social Media and The Organization for Transformative Works...
New Book On Human Rights, the Novel, and International Law From Fordham University Press
Posted on March 17, 2009Fordham University Press announces the publication of the 2008 ACLA René Wellek Prize Winner Joseph R. Slaughter, Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (2008).Here are some reviews. "Human Rights, Inc. is a book of huge erudition that effortlessly and elegantly combines history, literary theory and political philosophy...
Law and Language
Posted on March 17, 2009Peter Tiersma, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, has published What is Language and Law? And Does Anyone Care? in Law and Language: Theory and Society (Frances Olsen, Alexander Lorz & Dieter Stein, eds.; 2008). Here is the abstract.There has been growing attention paid recently to the interdisciplinary study of language and law...
Call For Papers
Posted on March 17, 2009From Nick Federico, Deans Fellow to Professor Anthony Varona, Professor of Law at the American University, Washington College of LawCALL FOR PAPERS & PANELSOUTSIDERS INSIDE: CRITICAL OUTSIDER THEORY AND PRAXISIN THE POLICYMAKING OF THE NEW AMERICAN REGIMEAmerican University - Washington College of LawWashington, D...
Shakespeare and Political Legitimacy
Posted on March 12, 2009Eric Heinze, Queen Mary, University of London School of Law, has published "Heir, Celebrity, Martyr, Monster: Legal and Political Legitimacy in Shakespeare and Beyond," in volume 20 of Law and Critique (2009). Here is the abstract. The Seventeenth Century places Western political thought on a path increasingly concerned with ascertaining the legitimacy of a determinate individual, parliamentary or popular sovereign...
White House Law
Posted on March 12, 2009Keith A. Rowley, UNLV Law School, has published "In There a Lawyer in the (White) House?: Portraying Lawyers on The West Wing," in Lawyers in Your Living Room!: Law on Television (Michael Asimow ed.; ABA, 2009). Here is the abstract. Ever since "L.A. Law" burst triumphantly onto the small screen in 1986 and the "Law & Order" franchise was born four years later, shows featuring lawyers have become a staple of American prime time network television...
Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell
Posted on March 10, 2009Carolyn Grose, William Mitchell College of Law, has published 'Once Upon a Time, in a Land Far, Far Away': Lawyers and Clients Telling Stories About Ethics (and Everything Else) , in volume 20 of the Hastings Women's Law Journal (2009). Here is the abstract...
Annual Reports: They're For Research Now
Posted on March 06, 2009Gaetan Breton, University du Quebec (Montreal), has published "Semiotic Analysis of Storytelling in the Annual Report." Here is the abstract. This paper wants to explore the use of semiotics analysis to better understand the annual report. We start with the idea that the annual report is telling stories to the reader...
What Not To Bare
Posted on March 06, 2009Erik Jensen of Case Western Reserve Law School makes the case for judicial sartorial minimalism. But what, I ask, does this say about judicial conservatism?Erik M. Jensen, CWRU Law School, "Under the Robes: A Judicial Right to Bare Arms (and Legs and...
New Publication: Diversity and Tolerance in Socio-Legal Contexts: Explorations in the Semiotics of Law
Posted on March 03, 2009Authoring Opinions
Posted on February 26, 2009Ryan Benjamin Witte, Columbia University Law School and Florida State University College of Law, has published "The Judge as an Author/The Author as a Judge." Here is the abstract. For Federal judges, a life-tenure also comes with a life-long publishing deal...
Analyzing the Image of the Lawyer in "The Sweet Hereafter"
Posted on February 26, 2009Timothy P. O'Neill, John Marshall Law School (Chicago), has published "There Will Be Blame: Misfortune and Injustice in 'The Sweet Hereafter'," in volume 5 of the University of Denver Sports and Entertainment Law Journal (Fall 2008). Here is the abstract...
Lincoln and Popular Culture
Posted on February 22, 2009The American Bar Association is presenting a program on Lincoln in pop culture: The Lincoln Myth: How Pop Culture Defines America's Great Lawyer/President on February 24. Here's more. David Hundley, of Cinema Mishmash, and I are speaking. Henry White, Executive Director of the ABA is introducing the program, and Edward Adams, editor of the ABA Journal is moderating the program.
World Congress On Law and Literature and CFP
Posted on February 22, 2009The Italian Society for Law and Literature, headquartered at the University of Bologna, is organizing the 24th IVR World Congress on Law and Literature, which will take place in Beijing from the 15th to the 20th of September. Here's a link to more information on the Society's website, including the CFP.
Rumpole of the Bailey
Posted on February 20, 2009Paul B. Bergman, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, has published "Rumpole and the Bowl of Comfort Food," in Lawyers in Your Living Room (Michael Asimow ed.; ABA Press, 2009). Here is the abstract. Rumpole of the Bailey was a delightful British television series based on the life and courtroom exploits of John Mortimer's fictional curmudgeonly barrister, Horace Rumpole...
Tontines, Not Tocsins
Posted on February 20, 2009Remember the inheritance device behind the death in Agatha Christie's mystery 4:50 From Paddington? (That novel is also known as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw). Or Thomas Costain's novel The Tontine? Kent McKeever of Columbia Law School investigates tontines further...
Law and Pornography
Posted on February 20, 2009John M. Kang, St. Thomas University School of Law, has published "Taking Safety Seriously: Using Liberalism to Fight Pornography," in volume 15 of Michigan Journal of Gender & Law (2008). Here is the abstract. In the law review literature on pornography, there is sometimes the depressing story that either liberalism is limply unhelpful to combat pornography or, in its role as philosophical handmaiden, liberalism happily does pornography's bidding...
Civility, Constitutionalism, and the Image of Men
Posted on February 20, 2009John M. Kang, St. Thomas University School of Law, has published "Manliness and the Constitution," at 32 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 261 (2009). Here is the abstract. Much of the legal scholarship regarding gender focuses justifiably on discrimination against women; accordingly, if such scholarship does discuss men, it does so chiefly to illuminate the ways in which women have been oppressed by them...
Spiritualists and Copyright
Posted on February 18, 2009Christine A. Corcos, Louisiana State University Law Center, has published 'Ghostwriters': Spiritualists, Copyright Infringement, and Rights of Publicity, in Law and Magic: A Collection of Essays (Christine A. Corcos, ed.: Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2009)...
Testimony in Literature
Posted on February 18, 2009Pramod K. Nayar, University of Hyderabad, Department of English, has published "Human Rights and Testimonial Fiction: Alicia Partnoy and the Case of Argentina's Disappeared," at 1 Icfai University Journal of Commonwealth Literature 61-78 (2009). Here is the abstract...
Law and Cultural Heritage
Posted on February 18, 2009From the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP):Three Important AnnouncementsLCCHP 2009 Student Writing Competition in Cultural Heritage Preservation Law Database of Internship/Externship/Job Opportunities in Cultural Heritage Law Students & New Professionals Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation being formed --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Student Writing Competition in Cultural Heritage Preservation LawThe Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation announces the 2009 LCCHP Annual Student Writing Competition in Cultural Heritage Preservation Law...
Justice in "Measure For Measure"
Posted on February 16, 2009John V. Orth, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Law, has published "'The Golden Metwand': The Measure of Justice in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure," in the Adelaide Law Review. Here is the abstract. Measure for Measure, one of Shakespeare's problem plays, is a dark comedy depicting Duke Vincentio's effort to restore respect for the law after a period of lax enforcement...
Law and Semiotics
Posted on February 16, 2009Here is the table of contents for volume 22 of the International Journal of the Semiotics of Law (no. 1, 2009--Special Issue: Lawyers Making Meaning - the Roberta Kevelson Seminar on Law and Semiotics.The contents of the Special Issue: Lawyers Making Meaning - The Roberta Kevelson Seminar on Law and Semiotics, Guest Editors: Jan Broekman and William Pencak is as follows:Jan M...
Legal Narrative and Street Law
Posted on February 16, 2009Elizabeth L. MacDowell, Chapman University School of Law, has published "Law on the Street: Legal Narrative and the Street Law Classroom," in volume 9 of Rutgers Race and the Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract. This Article argues that the failure of anti-discrimination law to address the problems of subordination reflects the hegemonic perspective in legal narratives...
Call For Papers
Posted on February 16, 2009CALL FOR ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTSCRN No. 9 (Gender and Legal Education)LAW AND SOCIETY ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING May 28-31, 2009Denver, CODEADLINE FOR PROPOSAL: FEBRUARY 25, 2009 Roundtable: Teaching Gender Inequality in Law Schools Conversations about gender and sexuality in core law school courses are often focused on equality?constitutional doctrines of formal equality meted out by high courts ? rather than underlying causes, effects and forms of inequality...
Call For Papers
Posted on February 11, 2009SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS 8th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2009)(2-5 December 2009) TRANSPARENCY, CONTROL AND POWER: ISSUES IN LEGAL SEMIOTICSConvenor: Vijay K. BhatiaConference Venue: Department of English, City University of Hong Kong ...
Matlock From Across the Pond
Posted on February 11, 2009Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn, University of Westminster School of Law, and Peter Robson, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, School of Law, have published "Matlock - America's Greatest Lawyer - Case Closed: A Transatlantic Perspective," in Lawyers in Your Living Room (Michael Asimow, ed...
The Visual, French History, and Virtual Memory
Posted on February 09, 2009Daniel Maxwell Sussner has published "Projections: The visual structure of French history," a dissertation in partial completion of the requirements for the PhD at Harvard University. Here is the abstract.How do visual media structure historical thinking? In the context of collective memory, this essay argues that engraving, the daguerreotype and film organize how historians make sense of the past...
Call For Papers
Posted on February 09, 2009?LAW, LITERATURE & RELIGION? ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERSFIRST ANNUAL VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW AND DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LAW AND LITERATURE SYMPOSIUMOCTOBER 1 ? 3, 2009 Villanova?s Law School and Department of English will hold a law and literature symposium, the first in a projected annual series, beginning Thursday evening, October 1, 2009, and ending Saturday afternoon, October 3, 2009...
The Law and Literature of Basil Montagu
Posted on February 09, 2009David Graham and John Paul Tribe, Kingston University Law School, have published "Basil Montagu QC (1770-1851): A Portrait of an Early 19th Century Life in Literature and the Law." Here is the abstract. In 1814 Basil Montagu, by now an extremely busy member of the Chancery bar took up residence at 25 Bedford Square in fashionable Bloomsbury...
Witnessing in The Accused
Posted on February 09, 2009Jessica A. Silbey, Suffolk University Law School, has published "A Witness to Justice," in Studies in Law, Politics, and Society: A Special Symposium Issue on Law and Film (Austin Sara, ed. 2009), pp. 61-91. Here is the abstract. In the 1988 film The Accused, a young woman named Sarah Tobias is gang raped on a pinball machine by three men while a crowded bar watches...
British Advisory Group Says British TV Stereotypes Women
Posted on February 02, 2009The National Skills Forum, an independent British group, has slammed British television, saying it presents a stereotyped view of women. Somehow, I'm not surprised. In a report to be released tomorrow, the group says"No major British broadcaster has made any commitment to challenging gender stereotypes at work...
Treatise on Legal Visual Semiotics: Call For Papers
Posted on January 29, 2009The original call for papers specified a closing date of January 15. This call for papers extends the date to February 15th.CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, TREATISE ON LEGAL VISUAL SEMIOTICSEditors: Anne Wagner, Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy and Richard SherwinPublisher: Springer SBM SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND TIMELINE:Expression of interest should be addressed by e-mail to valwagnerfr@yahoo...
Law, Literature, and Political Thought
Posted on January 27, 2009P. G. Monateri, University of Torino School of Law, has published "Sovereign Ambiguity - From Hamlet to Benjamin via Eliot and Schmitt." Here is the abstract. The Author examines how Romantic Ambiguity lies at the heart of the legal notion of Sovereignty, applying a law and literature approach to notions developed by Benjamin and Carl Schmitt...
I Like To Slog/Among the Blogs
Posted on January 26, 2009From Mental Floss Blog: Stacy Conradt entertains with 10 Stories Behind Dr. Seuss Stories. They include the little known fact that "If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, is the first recorded instance of the word ?nerd.? On the human rights front: Horton Hears a Who! Somehow, Geisel?s books find themselves in the middle of controversy...
References To Homer in Australian Judicial Opinions
Posted on January 22, 2009Leslie Katz has published "Homer in Australian Reasons for Judgment or Decision." Here is the abstract. The paper discusses various allusions to Homer or his works in the reasons for judgment of Australian courts or the reasons for decision of Australian tribunals...
Hip Hop, Criminal Law, and Legal Critique
Posted on January 20, 2009Nick J. Sciullo has published "Conversations with the Law: Irony, Hyperbole and Identity Politics or Sake Pase? Wyclef Jean, Shottas, and Haitian Jack - A Hip-Hop Creole Fusion of Rhetorical Resistance to the Law," in volume 34 of Oklahoma City University Law Review (2009)...
John Mortimer Dies
Posted on January 16, 2009John Mortimer, author of the "Rumpole of the Bailey" stories, as well as numerous other books, has died at the age of 85. Read more here.
McGoohan, Montalban Die
Posted on January 15, 2009Patrick McGoohan, known for a number of law-related roles: as "Number 6" in the cult series "The Prisoner," as "John Drake", the hero of the series "Danger Man" and "Secret Agent," and as various villains in several "Columbo" movies, as well as a number of well-received films, has died at the age of 80...
Methods of Teaching Native American Literature and Law
Posted on January 15, 2009Cristine Soliz, Colorado State University, Pueblo, and Harold Joseph have published "Native American Literature, Ceremony, and Law," in MLA Options for Teaching Literature and Law (Austin Sarat, Cathrine Frank & Matthew Anderson, eds., 2009). Here is the abstract...
Some New Books Of Interest
Posted on January 14, 2009New books of interestLisa Surwillo, The Stages of Property: Copyrighting Theatre in Spain (University of Toronto Press, 2008).David Thomas et al., Theatre Censorship From Walpole To Wilson (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Rhetoric, Law, and Religion: Jefferson's "Letter to the Danbury Baptists"
Posted on January 14, 2009Ian C. Bartrum, Yale Law School & Vermont Law School, has published "Of Historiography and Constitutional Principle: Jefferson's Reply to the Danbury Baptists," in volume 51 of the Journal of Church & State. Here is the abstract. This article examines the ways that the Supreme Court has used Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists ("a wall of separation between church and state") as a rhetorical symbol...
Legal TV
Posted on January 12, 2009As with nearly every new tv season, new legal series are in development. David E. Kelley has one in the wings, Legally Mad, which will star Charity Wakefield. Now, NBC has agreed to develop Rob Morrow's Barely Legal, based on the true story of Kathleen Holtz, who at 18 passed the California Bar.
Harry Potter the Anglo-Saxon
Posted on January 09, 2009Susan Liemer, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale School of Law, has published "Bot and Gemots: Anglo-Saxon Legal References in Harry Potter," forthcoming in Harry Potter and the Law (Carolina Academic Press). Here is the abstract.In the popular Harry Potter book series, author J...
English Common Lawyers and Tradition
Posted on January 09, 2009Cristina Costantini, University of Bergamo, has published "The Keepers of Traditions: The English Common Lawyers and the Presence of Law." Here is the abstract. This paper looks into the subtle frame of the legal traditions, exploring the structural relationship that indissolubly binds history, law and narrative...
Law, Literature, and Doctor Faustus
Posted on January 09, 2009Shaina Kovalsky has published "Legally Speaking: State as Community in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus." Here is the abstract. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus appears to have largely neglected by scholars in law and literature, despite its seeming promise in that arena...
Law, Literature and the Holocaust
Posted on January 09, 2009Richard Weisberg, Cardozo School of Law, has published "Law and Literature as Survivor" as Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 221. Here is the abstract. While human rights lawyers from Nuremberg on tried to respond to the evils of Hitler's Europe with cautious directness, humanistic theorists in the post-modernist modes of the post-war period resisted all generalizations, including the establishment of legal norms through international codes of law...
Life, Art, and Bernie Madoff
Posted on December 28, 2008Patricia Allen notes that life seems to have imitated art, at least in the case of the current Bernie Madoff scandal. She seeks out the commentary of a number of critics and writers, who compare it to Harley Granville-Barker's The Voysey Inheritance, which David Mamet has lately adapted...
Some Recently Published Titles In Law and Literature
Posted on December 17, 2008A round-up of selected titles published in law and literature in the past year or so.br /br /br /Almog, Shulamit, The poetics of the legal system in the digital age: contemporary challenges to traditional concepts of justice (2007).br /br /Atkinson, Logan, and Diana Majury, Law, mystery, and the humanities: collected essays (2008)...
Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought
Posted on December 17, 2008Lorie Graham and Stephen M. McJohn, Suffolk University Law School, have published "Cognition, Law, Stories," in Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, Technology (Winter 2009). Here is the abstract. br / br /blockquoteThis essay reviews Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought (Penguin 2007), which offers insights from cognitive science just where it overlaps the most with law - how we use basic cognitive categories like intent, space, time, events and causation...
Law and Linguistics
Posted on December 16, 2008Andrei Marmor, USC Gould School of Law, has published "What Does the Law Say? Semantics and Pragmatics in Statutory Language," forthcoming in Analisi e Diritto. Here is the abstract. The content of communication in a given speech situation often goes beyond what the speaker has explicitly said...
Law, Morality, and Television
Posted on December 15, 2008MSNBC.com's Susan Young has this story about the interesting moral dilemmas that television dramas pose "for fun." But do viewers take them too seriously? What do adults and children learn from these dramatizations? Commentators trace the evolution of today's ethically complex hero, from Jim Rockford of the Rockford Files to "24"'s Jack Bauer here.
Some Personal Reflections On "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Posted on December 12, 2008Sherrilyn Ifill, University of Maryland, School of Law, has published "To Kill a Mockingbird Perspectives," at 41 Maryland Bar Journal 54-59 (September/October 2008). Here is the abstract. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of the most influential and widely acclaimed legal novels in American history...
Translation as Metaphor
Posted on December 10, 2008Robert Leckey, McGill University Faculty of Law, has published "Filiation and the Translation of Legal Concepts," in Legal Engineering and Comparative Law (volume 2)(Geneva: Schulthess, 2009). Here is the abstract. The paper argues for the use of the metaphor of translation of legal concepts in comparative law by exploring recent reforms to the law of assisted reproduction by the legislature of Quebec...
21 Grams
Posted on December 10, 2008Bruce L. Hay, Harvard Law School, has published "The Earth Turned to Bring Us Closer," in volume 29 of Cardozo Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract. This paper is part of a symposium issue entitled "Law and Event," whose subject is the work of the contemporary French philosopher Alain Badiou...
Religious Words, Secular Argument
Posted on December 09, 2008Jack Lee Sammons, Mercer University School of Law, has published "A Rhetorician's View of Religious Speech in Civic Argument," at 32 Seattle University Law Review 367 (2008).This paper examines the role of religious speech in democratic civic argument by challenging liberal methods of addressing the issue of religious speech with a more rhetorical view of civic argument...
Upcoming Symposium: Women and the Law
Posted on December 09, 2008From Suzanne Kim, Rutgers School of Law, NewarkRutgers School of Law-Newark is pleased to be celebrating its centennial this year. To honor the law school's tradition of contributing to social justice, we are hosting a day-long symposium on Feb. 13, 2009 entitled "Rutgers School of Law-Newark Celebrates Women Reshaping American Law...
Call For Papers
Posted on December 05, 2008Reinforcing and Resisting Feminist Representations: Spaces, Voices and Identities The 12th Annual Louisiana State University Women's and Gender Studies ConferenceMarch 5 - 6, 2009 Louisiana State UniversityBaton Rouge, LouisianaCall for ProposalsThe theme of this year?s conference, Reinforcing and Resisting Feminist Representations: Spaces, Voices and Identities, addresses the role that women?s and gender studies scholarship has played in challenging, rethinking and expanding repressive and limiting understandings of feminism, gender expression, and identity in the traditional disciplines and society...
Intellectual Property and Rhetoric
Posted on December 05, 2008Patricia Louise Loughlan, University of Sydney Faculty of Law, has published "'You Wouldn't Steal a Car': Intellectual Property and the Language of Theft," at 29 European Intellectual Property Review 401 (2007). Here is the abstract. It is actually quite easy to tell a good guy from a bad guy when one of the guys is being called a thief...
Rhetoric and Reparations
Posted on December 05, 2008Lolita Buckner Inniss, Cleveland-Marshall School of Law, has published "A Critical Legal Rhetoric Approach to 'In Re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation'," as Cleveland-Marshall Legal Studies Paper No. 8-155. Here is the abstract.In this paper I apply critical legal rhetoric to the judicial opinion rendered in response to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Second Amended and Consolidated Complaint in 'In Re African American Slave Descendants', a case concerning the efforts of a group of modern-day descendants of enslaved African-Americans to obtain redress for the harms of slavery...
Patricia Cornwell's "Scarpetta"
Posted on December 04, 2008CNN.com has this lengthy interview with Patricia Cornwell, author of the Kay Scarpetta novels.
Legal Language
Posted on December 02, 2008Andre Marmor, USC Gould School of Law, has published "The Pragmatics of Legal Language," as USC Law Legal Studies Paper No. 08-11. Here is the abstract. In most standard cases, the content of the law is tantamount to the content that is communicated by the relevant legal authority...
Law, Philosophy, and the Rhetorical Tradition
Posted on December 02, 2008Francis Joseph Mootz III, UNLV School of Law, has published "The Irrelevance of Contemporary Academic Philosophy for Law: Recovering the Rhetorical Tradition," in On Philosophy in American Law (F. J. Mootz III, ed.; Cambridge University Press, 2009). Here is the abstract...
James Boyd White On the Links Among Law, Thought, and Language
Posted on December 02, 2008James Boyd White, University of Michigan Law School, has published "Establishing Relations Between Law and Other Forms of Thought and Language," 1 Erasmus Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract. The law does not, and could not, exist in an intellectual or linguistic vacuum...
Some Gift Suggestions For the Non-Denominational Holidays
Posted on December 02, 2008Don't know what to give for the holidays? Pierre Bayard's Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles, newly translated into English by Charlotte Mandell, is now available. In this "revisionist view" of the classic Conan Doyle novel, French critic argues that the iconic detective didn't know what he was doing half the time...
Language, Literature, and Constitutional Theories
Posted on December 02, 2008Ian C. Bartrum, Yale Law School & Vermont Law School, has published "Metaphors and Modalities: Meditations on Bobbitt's Theory of the Constitution," in 17 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal (2008). Here is the abstract. This article builds on Philip Bobbitt's remarkable work in constitutional theory, which posits a practice-based constitution based in six accepted "modalities" of argument...
Rhetoric in Child Custody Decision Making
Posted on December 02, 2008Linda L. Berger, Mercer University School of Law, has published "How Embedded Knowledge Structures Affect Judicial Decision Making: An Analysis of Metaphor, Narrative, and Imagination in Child Custody Disputes." Here is the abstract. We live in a time of radically changing conceptions of family and of the relationships possible between children and parents...
Call For Papers
Posted on November 26, 2008American University Washington College of LawIP/Gender: Mapping the Connections 6th Annual SymposiumApril 24, 2009Special Theme: Female Fan Cultures and Intellectual PropertySponsored by American University Washington College of Law?sProgram on Information Justice and Intellectual PropertyWomen and the Law ProgramJournal of Gender, Social Policy & the LawIn collaboration with American University?s Center for Social Media The Organization for Transformative WorksRebecca Tushnet, Georgetown UniversityFrancesca Coppa, Muhlenberg CollegeDeadline for submission of abstracts: December 19, 2008 The 6th Annual Symposium on ?IP/Gender: Mapping the Connections? seeks papers on female subcultures and their relationship to intellectual property and copyright regimes, with a particular emphasis on fan works and culture...
A Blog On Crime Fiction and Writing
Posted on November 21, 2008If you like, or are interested in trying to write crime fiction, check out the blog Hey There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room, written by a writer, a publisher, an agent, a book reviewer, a bookshop owner, an editor, and a p.r. person. They're all alive, and in your (virtual) living room, and in your conservatory, and in your library...
A Draft Syllabus For a Course in Law and Literature
Posted on November 20, 2008Simon Stern, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, has published "Law and Literature Seminar, Draft Syllabus." Here is the abstract. This is a draft syllabus for an introductory seminar on law and literature. Courses in this area tend to focus primarily (often exclusively) on literary texts...
Call For Papers
Posted on November 20, 2008Call for Papers: Special Issue of Utopian Studies on Law and UtopiaGuest Editor: Peter Sands, University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeUtopias are prescriptive, normative alternatives to already existing societies. Thomas More, himself a lawyer, envisioned a society free from lawyers and with few positive laws, and that trope has since made frequent appearance in utopias and dystopias...
Call For Papers
Posted on November 17, 2008Posted on behalf of Ruth Ann Robbins, Rutgers-Camden School of LawOnce Upon a Legal Time, Chapter Two: Applied Storytelling in LawLewis & Clark Law School; Portland, Oregon July 22-24, 2009IntroductionWe are pleased to issue this Call for Proposals for the second biennialinternational Applied Storytelling Conference...
Lawyer Ethics In Popular Culture
Posted on November 17, 2008Michael Asimow, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, and Richard Weisberg, Yeshiva University, Cardozo School of Law, have published "When the Lawyer Knows the Client is Guilty: Client Confessions in Legal Ethics, Popular Culture, and Literature," forthcoming in the Southern University Interdisciplinary Law Journal...
Call For Papers
Posted on November 16, 2008From the Stetson Law Review In December 2009 the Stetson Law Review will publish a symposium issue on law, literature, and film. Articles may focus on literature, film, or both; short fiction and poetry will also be considered. Regarding proposed submissions, please contact Robert Batey, the faculty coordinator of the symposium issue, at batey@law...
Lyrics and Law
Posted on November 14, 2008Camille Nelson, Saint Louis University School of Law, has published "Lyrical Assault: Dancehall Versus the Cultural Imperialism of the North-West," at 17 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 231 (2008). Here is the abstract. This article examines Jamaican Dancehall music's implications and international perceptions and explores a possible legal remedy for what has been dubbed "Murder Music...
Shakespeare and Sovereignty
Posted on November 12, 2008P. G. Monateri, University of Turin, School of Law, has published "Sovereign Ambiguity - From Hamlet to Benjamin via Eliot and Schmitt." Here is the abstract. The Author examines how Romantic Ambiguity lies at the heart of the legal notion of Sovereignty, applying a law and literature approach to notions developed by Benjamin and Carl Schmitt...
Robert Tsai's Eloquence and Reason
Posted on November 07, 2008Professor Robert Tsai (American University, Washington College of Law), who previously guest blogged here in January 2006, has just published Eloquence and Reason: Creating a First Amendment Culture (Yale University Press, Nov. 2008). According to the back cover blurb: This provocative book presents a theory of the First Amendment?s development...
Michael Crichton Dies
Posted on November 05, 2008Author Michael Crichton has died. The physician and author (Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Coma) was 66.
The CSI Effect
Posted on November 05, 2008Donald E. Shelton, Eastern Michigan University, has published "The 'CSI Effect': Does it Really Exist?" in volume 259 of the National Institute of Justice Journal (2008). Here is the abstract. Many attorneys, judges, and journalists have claimed that watching television programs like CSI has caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence has been presented...
A New Edition of Frankenstein
Posted on October 31, 2008The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Charles Robinson, Professor of English at the University of Delaware, has prepared an edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, stripped of Percy Shelley's improvements. We can now see what Mary Shelley actually wrote, and compare it to what we've been reading all these years...
Tony Hillerman, Author of Mysteries Featuring Native American Sleuths, Dies
Posted on October 27, 2008Tony Hillerman, the author of numerous bestselling mysteries featuring Navajo sleuths Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, has died of pulmonary failure. Here's more from the International Herald Tribune.Mr. Hillerman's first Joe Leaphorn novel was The Blessing Way...
Anti-Semitism and Religion in Kafka
Posted on October 22, 2008Arnold Heidsieck, University of Southern California, has published "On Judaism, Christianity, Anti-Semitism in Kafka's the Castle, His Letters and Diaries." Here is the abstract. In his writings Kafka scrutinized, encouraged by his friend Max Brod, the early 20th-century German-speaking disputes on the ancient Jewish origins of Christianity and attempted an explication of the Christian-Germanic ideology of anti-Semitism...
You Don't Tread On Superman's Cape
Posted on October 20, 2008From EvidenceProfBlog: Colin Miller writes cleverly and authoritatively about claims brought against Superman by a victim he rescues in an episode of the show Lois and Clark. So what does this tell us about Good Samaritan laws?
Short Law Review Article, Long Memory?
Posted on October 20, 2008Erik M. Jensen, Case Western Reserve School of Law, has published "The Intellectual History of 'The Shortest Article in Law Review History'," in volume 59 of the Case Western Reserve Law Review. Here is the abstract. "The Shortest Article in Law Review History" appeared in 2000 to a mixture of acclaim ("Brilliant!"), horror ("Don't you have anything better not to do?"), and indifference ("Huh?")...
A Look at Native American Law Through a Michigan Novelist's Eyes
Posted on October 07, 2008Matthew L. M. Fletcher, Michigan State University College of Law, has published "Laughing Whitefish: A Tale of Justice and Anishinaabe Custom," as MSU Legal Studies Research Paper 06-16. Here is the abstract. Laughing Whitefish, a novel by Robert Traver, the pen name of former Michigan Supreme Court Justice John Voelker, is the fictionalized story of a case that reached the Michigan Supreme Court three times, culminating in Kobogum v...
Fan Fiction, Harry Potter, and Copyright Law
Posted on October 03, 2008Aaron Schwabach, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, has published "The Harry Potter Lexicon and the World of Fandom: Fan Fiction, Outsider Works, and Copyright," has TJSL Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1274293. Here is the abstract. Fan fiction, long a nearly invisible form of outsider art, has grown exponentially in volume and legal importance in the past decade...
Kafka's POV
Posted on October 01, 2008Arnold Heidsieck, University of Southern California, has published "Kafka's Narrative Innovation and Ethical Intuitions." Here is the abstract. In his fictions Kafka develops an innovative narrative POV (uni-polar 'self-narration') and a penetrating (near-psychoanalytic) scrutiny of motives...
New Book on Shakespeare and the Law
Posted on October 01, 2008Hart Publishing is offering a new title called Shakespeare and the Law, edited by Paul Raffield and Gary Watt. It collects the proceedings of a July 2007 conference held at the University of Warwick School of Law. Here's further information provided by the publisher...
Law and Lyrics
Posted on September 26, 2008Alex B. Long, University of Tennessee College of Law, has published "[Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misuses of Popular Music Lyrics In Legal Writing," in volume 64 of the Washington and Lee Law Review (2007). Legal writers frequently utilize the lyrics of popular music artists to help advance a particular theme or argument in legal writing...
Call For Papers
Posted on September 26, 2008Georgetown University Law Center, Columbia Law School, University of Southern California Center for Law, History & Culture, and UCLA School of Law invite submissions for the seventh meeting of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop to be held at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D...
Antigone and the Politics of Lamentation
Posted on September 26, 2008Bonnie Honig, American Bar Foundation, has published "Antigone's Laments, Creon's Grief: Mourning, Membership and the Politics of Exception," as American Bar Foundation Research Paper 08-02. Here is the abstract.This paper develops a historically situated reading of Sophocles' Antigone as an exploration of the politics of lamentation and the larger ideological conflicts these stand for...
Rousseau's Emile
Posted on September 24, 2008Eric Engle, University of Bremen, has published "Law and Literature: Instilling Norms by Fable in Rousseau's Emile." Here is the abstract. The Law and Literature movement proposes that legal interpretation can be improved by borrowing methods from literary interpretation, by seeing legal decisions as stories, and by examining literature from a legal perspective...
Bells Are Ringing
Posted on September 19, 2008Via On the Media, a piece by Zachary Pincus-Roth about how phones are vital to the plots of so many Hollywood films.
A Tragic Murder, Ten Years Later
Posted on September 17, 2008The New York Times has this feature article about The Laramie Project, a docuplay about the Matthew Shepard murder, which took place ten years ago.
Upcoming Symposium On Acquiring and Maintaining Collections of Cultural Objects: Challenges Confronting American Museums in the 21st Century
Posted on September 16, 2008DePaul College of Law Announces:8th Annual SymposiumAcquiring and Maintaining Collections of Cultural Objects: Challenges Confronting American Museums in the 21st CenturyMuseums face increasingly difficult challenges in collecting cultural objects-challenges that must be dealt with in ways that are consistent with best practices...
In Agatha Christie's Own Voice, a Window On the Last Third of Her Life
Posted on September 15, 2008Julie Bosman writes in the New York Times about a cache of tapes found recently featuring Agatha Christie's own voice and discussing a number of issues close to her heart, including whether Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot were ever likely to meet. Her grandson Mathew Prichard discovered the recordings in one of his grandmother's former homes...
Legal Briefs, and More
Posted on September 07, 2008The New York Times' John Eligon plays "What Not To Wear" in this article about fashion flair among legal eagles. Says Mr. Eligon, "For a visitor to the court, a judge without a black robe might prompt a double take. But on any given day in New York City?s courthouses, it is common to see judges on the bench with unzipped or unbuttoned robes; accessories like scarves, jewelry or collars hanging outside of a robe; and, in some cases, no robe at all...
Franz Kafka's Last Wishes and the Kafka Myths
Posted on September 02, 2008Professor Lior Strahilevitz (U. Chicago Law School) has an interesting post about Franz Kafka's papers. The famous story about Kafka's papers is that Kafka asked his friend, Max Brod, to burn them after his death. Although Kafka had published a few works during his lifetime, a great many stories, parables, letters, and diary entries were unpublished, as were Kafka's two great book masterpieces, The Trial and The Castle...
Steven Bochco's New Legal Drama Debuts
Posted on August 29, 2008Some early reviews are in for Steven Bochco's new legal drama Raising the Bar. Barry Garron of the Hollywood Reporter finds the series, slated to run on TNT, looking like "it had been developed for the CW network. Most of the characters are young lawyers, either public defenders under the tutelage of mother hen Roz Whitman (Gloria Reuben) or fledgling prosecutors under the harsh, cynical thumb of Nick Balco (Currie Graham)...
Women Lawyers on TV
Posted on August 28, 2008Christine A. Corcos, Louisiana State University Law Center, has published "Damages: The Truth is Out There," forthcoming in Lawyers in Your Living Room, edited by Michael Asimow (ABA Press, 2008). Here is the abstract. In this essay, part of Michael Asimow's forthcoming collection on lawyers on TV, I discuss the television show Damages and its portrayal of powerful lawyers, and whether their exercise of their power "damages" them...
Larry Friedman and Popular Culture
Posted on August 28, 2008Jo J. Carrillo, Hastings College of the Law, has published "Links and Choices: Popular Legal Culture in the Work of Lawrence M. Friedman," in volume 17 of Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal (2007). Here is the abstract. Based in part on James Willard Hurst's idea that markets create a social aggregate of behavior that shapes law, Lawrence M...
Angela Fernandez, University of
Posted on August 27, 2008Angela Fernandez, University of Toronto School of Law, has published "Copying and Copyright Issues at the Litchfield Law School," as University of Toronto Legal Studies Research Paper 08-13. Here is the abstract. The notebook method of legal education used at the famous Litchfield Law School (1774-1833) has long been a subject of intense interest among Connecticut historians, legal historians, and those interested in legal education and the legal profession...
Daytime TV Judges
Posted on August 26, 2008Taunya Lovell Banks, University of Maryland School of Law, has published "Judging the Judges - Daytime Television's Integrated Reality Court Bench," in Lawyers in Your Living Room, edited by Michael Asimow, (ABA Books, 2008). Here is the abstract. This essay looks at the integrated courtroom on daytime reality television court shows like "Judge Judy", the reasons for the persistent over representation of women and non-white male judges on these shows, why some shows are more popular than other shows, and how these shows may influence the real American legal system...
Call for Book Reviews: Women and the Law
Posted on August 25, 2008Proposals Due September 25, 2008The editors of Pace Law Review invite proposals from scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals for contributions to a special book review issue to be published in Winter 2008. We seeks proposals for reviews of any book published in 2008, 2007 or 2006 that contributes to the understanding of women?s experiences with the law...
Cybercrime in Fiction
Posted on August 22, 2008David S. Wall, University of Leeds, has published, "Cybercrime and the Culture of Fear: Social Science Fiction(s) and the Production of Knowledge about Cybercrime," forthcoming in Information, Communication & Society. Here is the abstract. This article builds upon my previous work (Wall, 2007 & 2008) to map out the conceptual origins of cybercrime in social science fiction and other faction genres to explore the relationship between rhetoric and reality in the production of knowledge about it...
Law and Literature in the Duke Curriculum
Posted on August 22, 2008Robin L. West, Georgetown University Law Center, has published, "Literature, Culture, and Law - At Duke University," in Teaching Law and Literature, 2008. Here is the abstract. The article compares programmatic questions from the Law and Literature movement from the 1970s to 1990s with more recent suggestions regarding the foundational questions for the Law and Culture movement...
Film As Evidence
Posted on August 22, 2008Jessica Silbey, Suffolk University Law School, has published "Cross-Examining Film," in volume 8 of the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class (2008). Here is the abstract.The Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Harris holds that a Georgia police officer did not violate a fleeing suspect's Fourth Amendment rights when he caused the suspect's car to crash...
Librarians Are Your Friends--Do Not MAKE THEM ANGRY!
Posted on August 22, 2008MSNBC.com has this story about a Wisconsin woman who failed to return two books in a timely fashion to her local public library, and paid no attention to its sad entreaties about their overdue status. The result: the librarians flexed their muscle, called out local law enforcement, and had her arrested and booked for failure to pay fines and overdues...
Is There a "CSI Effect"?
Posted on August 20, 2008Donald E. Shelton, Eastern Michigan University, has published "The 'CSI Effect': Does it Really Exist?" in volume 259 of the National Institute of Justice Journal (2008). Here is the abstract. Many attorneys, judges, and journalists have claimed that watching television programs like CSI has caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence has been presented...
Why Lawyers Should Read Shakespeare
Posted on August 19, 2008Michael P. Maslanka, the managing partner of Ford & Harrison in Dallas, has this article on Law.com about why lawyers should read Shakespeare. The article begins:Why do students still read Shakespeare? A conspiracy of finger-wagging, we-know-what's-best-for-you high school English teachers? No...
Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities Invites Applications for Dissertation Award
Posted on August 18, 2008Julien Mezey Dissertation AwardThe Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities invites submissions for its 2009 Julien Mezey Dissertation Award. This annual prize is awarded to the dissertation that most promises to enrich and advance interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of law, culture and the humanities...
The "Discourse of Madness"
Posted on August 12, 2008Ian Ward, University of Newcastle, has published "The Rochester Wives," in Law & Humanities, v. 2 (2008). Here is the abstract.During much of the nineteenth century England was gripped by periodic 'lunacy scares'. In large part, these scares addressed a more particular concern regarding 'wrongful confinement'...
Film and Historical Narrative
Posted on August 07, 2008Daphne Barazk-Erez, Tel Aviv University, has published "The Law of Historical Films: in the aftermath of Jenin Jenin," at 16 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 495(2007). Here is the abstract.Filmmaking and the narration of history have been engaged in a complex relationship ever since the early days of filmmaking...
Batman and George W. Bush
Posted on August 06, 2008Andrew Klavan writes in the Wall Street Journal that Batman, at least as he is portrayed in the new film The Dark Knight, and George W. Bush have a lot in common. "There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W...
The Uses of Narrative
Posted on August 01, 2008Doron Menashe, University of Haifa, Research Authority, and Hamutal Esther Shamash, have published "Pass These Sirens By: Further Thoughts on Narrative and Admissibility Rules, " in International Commentary on Evidence, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2007. Here is the abstract...
Law in Eighteenth Century English Literature
Posted on August 01, 2008Rebecca Probert, University of Warwick School of Law, has published "Examining Law Through the Lens of Literature: The Formation of Marriage in Eighteenth-Century England," in the journal Law & Humanities (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.This article examines what eighteenth-century novels and plays can tell us about the formation of marriage both before and after the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753...
The Non-Autonomy of Law
Posted on July 28, 2008James Boyd White, University of Michigan Law School, has published "Establishing Relations between Law and Other Forms of Thought and Language," forthcoming in 1 Erasmus Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract.The law does not, and could not, exist in an intellectual or linguistic vacuum...
Literature and Comparative Law
Posted on July 28, 2008Barbara Pozzo, University of Insubria, Department of Law and Economics of Firms and Persons, has published "A Suitable Boy: The Abolition of Feudalism in India, in volume 1 of the Erasmus Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract.This article focuses on law and literature as a challenging tool in teaching courses in comparative law...
Call For Papers
Posted on July 28, 2008Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions7th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & HumanitiesJanuary 9 - 12, 2009Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & SpaHonolulu Hawaii, USA Submission Deadline: August 22, 2008 Sponsored by:University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban NeighborhoodsThe Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance Web address: http://www...
Kafka's Knowledge of Law
Posted on July 24, 2008Arnold Heidsieck, University of Southern California, has published "Fictional and Non-Fictional Uses of Administrative, Civil, and Criminal Law by Kafka and His Friends." Here is the abstract. Kafka studied these three branches of law with several then-prominent academic teachers...
Publication Opportunity
Posted on July 23, 2008Joachim Linder, editor of the online journal IASL Online, invites those interested to submit titles for review in the journal, and to indicate whether they would be interested in reviewing those publications. Reviews in English are welcome. His contact information is email@joachim-linder...
Stella Rimington and Liz Carlyle
Posted on July 23, 2008NPR has this essay about Stella Rimington, the first woman director of Britain's MI5, and her books featuring intelligence officer Liz Carlyle.
Life Meets TV
Posted on July 17, 2008Colin Miller, of EvidenceProfBlog, has this interesting blogpost about Kathy Reichs as an expert witness, in the notorious Ohio nun killer case, State v. Robinson. Dr. Reichs is the author of the Temperance Brennan mystery stories and the inspiration for the Bones television series...
Mystery Writer Julie Smith on NPR
Posted on July 15, 2008Julie Smith, the author of a number of crime novels set in New Orleans (and in San Francisco) discusses the difficulty of taking up writing again after Hurricane Katrina in this interview with NPR.Here's more about Smith's writing.Louise Claire, De-Mythifying Julie Smith, 1(7) Bookcase 14-17 (October 1995)...
A Paper on British Film
Posted on July 15, 2008Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn of the University of Westminster, and Peter Robson of the University of St. Andrews have published "Genre, Iconography, and British Film," forthcoming in volume 36 of the University of Baltimore Law Review. Here's the abstract...
The Importance of Choosing Literary References Wisely
Posted on July 11, 2008Over at WSJ blog, Dan Slater writes about a Fair Housing Act case involving a condo association that prohibited all objects in hallways. A Jewish resident challenged the rule under the Fair Housing Act because his mezuzah was removed, claiming the rule discriminated against his religion...
The Engaged Lawyer On Film
Posted on July 07, 2008Lance McMillian, John Marshall Law School, Atlanta, has published "Tortured Souls: Unhappy Lawyers Viewed Through the Medium of Film." Here is the abstract.Lawyers are unhappy. So bad is the situation that scholars have even asked, "Can one be a lawyer and a happy human being at the same time?" Culturally, the existence of unhappy lawyers is not an unknown phenomenon...
"The worst day in the art studio is still better than the best day in the law firm"
Posted on July 06, 2008Here's more about Nathan Sawaya, former attorney turned LEGO artist. CNN features him in this story.
New British Legal Drama Causes Comment
Posted on July 03, 2008A new British legal drama is causing a whirlwind of commentary among barristers. Peter Moffat's Criminal Justice debuted Monday, and immediately caused debate for what some members of the bar consider its indictment of the legal system. An article in the Guardian documents the reactions that some lawyers have to the week-long series...
Call For Papers
Posted on June 25, 2008Call for Papers and WitnessThe University of Toledo College of Law is pleased to announce a universal and interdisciplinary conference on Saturday, October 25, 2008 in Toledo, Ohio on the subject of: 1808: Fighting for the Right to Dream Scholars are invited to come to Toledo and bear witness and discuss 1808...
New Publications in Law and the Humanities
Posted on June 20, 2008Some new and newer law and humanities titles.Boulhosa, Patricia Pires, Icelanders and the Kings of Norway: Mediaeval Sagas and Legal Texts (Boston: Brill, 2005).Chaplin, Susan, The Gothic and the Rule of Law, 1764-1820 (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).Clary, Amy, Textual Terrain: Wilderness in American Literature, Law, and Culture (Dissertation, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, 2005)...
Robert Johnson and Copyright
Posted on June 20, 2008Olufunmilayo Arewa, Northwestern University Law School, has published "Borrowing the Blues: Context and the Copyright of Robert Johnson," as Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 08-19. Here is the abstract.In 2004, Eric Clapton released the DVD-CD Sessions for Robert J and the CD Me and Mr...
A Walking Tour of the Naked City
Posted on June 20, 2008The New York Times features a walking tour of the city as seen through the eyes of Weegee (Arthur Fellig), the legendary photographer, who provided many notable pix, including crime scene photos. See also this article in today's issue. A new book devoted to his work, Weegee and the Naked City, is available from the University of California Press.
Call For Papers: Catholic Social Thought and the Law
Posted on June 19, 2008CALL FOR PAPERS SYMPOSIUM ON CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT AND THE LAW CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT AND CITIZENSHIP Villanova University School of Law October 11, 2008 On the eve of the 2008 election, Villanova University School of Law's sixth annual symposium on Catholic social thought will take up the question of citizenship and political participation...
Ejecting The Feminine From Hamlet
Posted on June 19, 2008Carla Spivack, Oklahoma City University School of Law, has published "The Woman Will Be Out: A New Look at the Law in Shakespeare's Hamlet." It will be published in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. Here is the abstract.Many readers have noted the abundant references to law in Shakespeare's Hamlet...
Call For Papers: Feminist Legal History
Posted on June 13, 2008From Professor Tracy Thomas, University of Akron The editors of a proposed book, Feminist Legal History: New Perspectives on Law seek submissions for contributing chapters to the book. This book is an edited collection of essays by leading scholars in law and history that offers new historical and feminist perspectives on law and applies these insights to the legal and social policy issues of today...
ALCH Call For Papers
Posted on June 13, 2008The Association for Law, Culture, and the Humanities has posted its annual Call for papers. Here's the link to the website. Here's the link to the CFP.
A Taste For the Law
Posted on June 09, 2008Chris Colin, who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, sent me a link to his piece on his friend Jose Klein, a newly minted Harvard Law grad, who is also an artist: he captures the essence of famous cases and legal issues on dinner plates. Read up on Mr...
Ripped From the Headlines
Posted on June 05, 2008Here's an ABA article discussing lawyer-writers who pen scripts for popular legal dramas.
Another Interpretation of Captain Vere
Posted on June 04, 2008Rob Atkinson, Jr., Florida State University College of Law, has published "Averting the Captain Vere 'Veer': Billy Budd as Melville's Republican Response to Plato" as FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 311. Here is the abstract. This article shows how Melville's Billy Budd, rightly one of law and literature's most widely studied canonical texts, answers Plato's challenge in Book X of the Republic: Show how poets create better citizens, especially better rulers, or banish them from the commonwealth of reasoned law...
A Jury of Her Peers, Domestic Abuse and Animal Abuse
Posted on June 04, 2008Caroline Anne Forell, University of Oregon School of Law, has published "Using a Jury of Her Peers to Teach About the Connection Between Domestic Abuse and Animal Abuse," in volume 15 of Animal Law Review (2008). Here is the abstract.In this essay I examine Susan Glaspell's short story A Jury of Her Peers in the context of teaching about the connection between domestic violence and animal abuse in an Animal Law course...
Call For Papers
Posted on June 03, 2008Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions7th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & HumanitiesJanuary 9 - 12, 2009Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & SpaHonolulu Hawaii, USA Submission Deadline: August 22, 2008 Sponsored by:University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban NeighborhoodsThe Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance Web address: http://www...
Humor and the Law
Posted on May 26, 2008Laura E. Little, Temple University School of Law, has published "Regulating Funny: Humor and the Law," to appear in volume 94 of the Cornell Law Review (2009). Here is the abstract.When humor hurts people, they may press claims in court, ascribing blame and demanding redress...
Understanding Privacy
Posted on May 25, 2008I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY (Harvard University Press, May 2008). There has been a longstanding struggle to understand what "privacy" means and why it is valuable. Professor Arthur Miller once wrote that privacy is "exasperatingly vague and evanescent...
Law and Gender in Shakespeare's Hamlet
Posted on May 25, 2008New on SSRN: Carla Spivack, The Woman Will be Out: A New Look at the Law in Shakespeare's Hamlet, forthcoming from Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. From the abstract: Many readers have noted the abundant references to law in Shakespeare's Hamlet...
Joseph W. Dellapenna, Villanova
Posted on May 24, 2008Joseph W. Dellapenna, Villanova University School of Law, has published "Peasants, Tanners, and Psychiatrists: Using Films To Teach Comparative Law," in International Journal of Legal Information, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2008. Here is the abstract.Films have proven to be a useful teaching tool for a course on Comparative Law...
The Amistad in Music
Posted on May 24, 2008Today's New York Times has this feature article on Anthony Davis's opera Amistad. For more about interpretations about the Amistad, or the Amistad in the arts, see the following selected resources.Research Guide to the Amistad AffairDoug Linder's Famous American Trials: Amistad PageAmistad Research Center
CBS Cancels "Shark"
Posted on May 14, 2008The Hollywood Reporter notes that CBS has cancelled a number of shows, including the lawyer drama Shark, which stars James Woods. Read more here. Never mind: the first season is already out on DVDs.
Science, Poetry, and Law
Posted on May 08, 2008Anita L. Allen, University of Pennsylvania Law School, has published "The Poetry of Genetics: On the Pitfalls of Popularizing Science," in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy (2009). Here is the abstract.The role genetic inheritance plays in the way human beings look and behave is a question about the biology of human sexual reproduction, one that scientists connected with the Human Genome Project dashed to answer before the close of the 20th century...
Karin Trustedt, European University
Posted on May 07, 2008Karin Trustedt, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), has published "The Tragedy of Law in Shakespeare," in Law & Humanities, volume 1. Here is the abstract.This paper focuses on the status of law in regard to nature and art in Shakespeare?s late play "The Tempest...
Logic in Twelve Angry Men
Posted on May 05, 2008I came across this essay by Joel Warren Lidz on logic and argument in the film "Twelve Angry Men." It originally appeared in the journal Teaching Philosophy.
Mildred Jeter Loving Dies
Posted on May 05, 2008Mildred Loving, one of the parties in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, has passed away. NPR has this audio story. Timothy Hutton and Lela Jeter starred in a made-for-television movie that dramatized the case, which made it to the Supreme Court in 1967...
"You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!"
Posted on May 05, 2008In a recent "Boston Legal" episode, Alan Shore (James Spader) excoriates the "Supreme Court" (played by lookalikes) for drifting away from "civil rights and liberties" to protectors of "pro-business". Read more in a Legal Times interview with producer/writer David E...
Law & Politics Book Review on Law & Literature
Posted on May 01, 2008Law & Politics Book Review has recently published an issue with short book reviews of many great works of literature with legal and political themes. The issue is available online here.Here is the table of contents:Introduction. . . . pp. 288-290...
Hart Publishing Launches New Journal on Law and the Humanities
Posted on April 29, 2008Here's the website for the new journal Law and the Humanities. The journal is peer-reviewed, appears twice a year and costs 90 pounds per year.
Shakespeare and Real Property
Posted on April 29, 2008Bradin Cormack has published "Strange Love, Or, Holding Lands," in volume 1 of Law & Humanities (2007). Here is the abstract.This paper explores how, in Shakespeare?s sonnets (and in the plays), Shakespeare looks to legal tenure and the mechanics of common-law possession to explore the claim of erotic relation and erotic estrangement on the speaking self and its "self-possession...
Law and Justice in Hamlet
Posted on April 23, 2008Suzanne Ost, University of Central Lancashire, Lancashire Law School, has published "`But Is This Law?' The Nature of Law, Sovereign Power and Justice in Hamlet," in volume 1 of Law & Humanities (2007). Here is the abstract.The paper addresses questions of legal and political theory concerning the representations of law, sovereign power and justice within Hamlet...
Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow
Posted on April 18, 2008Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow Faculty of Law and Financial Studies, has published "`With All the Impressiveness and Substantial Value of Truth': Notable Trials and Criminal Justice, 1750-1930", in volume 1 of Law & Humanities (2007). Here is the abstract...
Papers To Be Presented at the Law & Humanities Interdisciplinary Junior Scholar Workshop
Posted on April 10, 2008Here's news from the conveners of the 2008 Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Interdisciplinary Writing Competition, Katherine Franke, Ariela Gross, Naomi Mezey, Hilary Schor, Clyde Spillenger, Nomi Stolzenberg, and Ariela Dubler. Each year we solicit papers from senior graduate students and untenured faculty on topics in law and the humanities...
Bruce L. Hay, Harvard Law School,
Posted on April 09, 2008Bruce L. Hay, Harvard Law School, has published "Charades: Religious Allegory in 12 Angry Men," in volume 82 of the Chicago-Kent Law Review (2007) as part of a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the film 12 Angry Men.Here is the abstract.This essay, a contribution to a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the film 12 Angry Men, shows that the film is an intricate, carefully constructed allegory of a series of stories from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament...
Contract and the Comedy of Errors
Posted on April 09, 2008Andrew Zurcher, Queen's College, Cambridge, has published "Consideration, Contract, and the End of the Comedy of Errors, in volume 1 of Law & Humanities (2007). Here is the abstract.To address methodological and critical issues at stake in the conferral of legal historical and literary studies...
Shakespeare and Specific Performance
Posted on April 09, 2008Mark Fortier, University of Guelph, has published "Shakespeare and Specific Performance," in volume 1 of Law & Humanities. Here is the abstract.The standard form of compensation for loss at the common law is damages - a sum of money given as recompense...
Weisberg on the Merchant of Venice
Posted on April 09, 2008Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School, has published "The Concept and Performance of "The Code" in The Merchant of Venice" as Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 229. Here is the abstract. This essay elaborates on several prior endeavors that explored the bonding of Portia and Shylock in the last two scenes of The Merchant of Venice...
Judges Citing Literature
Posted on April 08, 2008Professor Todd Henderson (U. Chicago Law School) has posted an interesting article on SSRN, Citing Fiction, 11 Green Bag 2d 171 (2008). He provides many illuminating facts about judges citing literary works: A comprehensive survey of over 2 million federal appellate opinions over the past 100 years reveals only 543 identifiable citations or references to works of fiction...
Resources For a Sad Anniversary
Posted on April 04, 2008Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died forty years ago today, a sad, sad anniversary. The presence of minority characters on screen is finally increasing, but is still so infrequent that one has a reasonable chance of counting the number of black or Hispanic or Asian lawyers, for example...
Law Blog Focuses on International Law and Film
Posted on April 04, 2008New blog that you might have missed: International Law and Films, part of the International Institute for Law and Justice of the New York University School of Law.
Property Law in The Lord of the Rings
Posted on April 03, 2008Jacob Kaufman discusses property law in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in a post here on the blog Law is Cool. See also these follow up posts here at the Volokh Conspiracy.[Thanks to Professor Troy Hinrichs, California Baptist University, for the cite]...
Harry Potter, College Student
Posted on April 02, 2008Patrick Lee, a freshman at Yale, writes for CNNU about Potter-themed courses at universities and colleges around the United States here.
Filmmaker Jules Dassin Dies
Posted on April 01, 2008Filmmaker Jules Dassin has died at the age of 96. Mr. Dassin was born in the US, where he began his career in the Yiddish theater. He made one of his most famous films, the noir classic The Naked City, in 1948. He eventually left the US for France after the House UnAmerican Activities hearings began and he fell under suspicion...
Jeanne L. Schroeder, Cardozo School
Posted on March 31, 2008Jeanne L. Schroeder, Cardozo School of Law, reviews William MacNeil's new book Lex Populi as a Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper. Here is the abstract.William MacNeil's book is that rarest of rarae aves - a serious legal study that is fun to read. As its name implies, the book examines 'people's law' or, more loosely, 'pop law' - law as reflected by contemporary popular culture...
The Meaning of Rap
Posted on March 31, 2008Andrea Dennis, University of Kentucky College of Law, has published "Poetic (In)Justice? Rap Music as Art, Life and Criminal Evidence" in volume 31 of Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts (2007). Here is the abstract.Courts routinely admit defendant-authored rap music lyrics as substantive evidence in the adjudication of criminal cases...
Weisberg On Law and Literature
Posted on March 19, 2008Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School, has published "Law and Literature as Survivor," as Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 221. Here is the abstract.While human rights lawyers from Nuremberg on tried to respond to the evils of Hitler's Europe with cautious directness, humanistic theorists in the post-modernist modes of the post-war period resisted all generalizations, including the establishment of legal norms through international codes of law...
Teaching Meaning Through Narrative
Posted on March 13, 2008Paula L. Abrams, Lewis & Clark Law School, has published "We the People and Other Constitutional Tales: Teaching Constitutional Meaning Through Narrative," at 41 The Law Teacher 247 (2007). Here is the abstract.The narratives associated with a landmark constitutional case, including the socio-political struggles that give rise to the dispute and the resulting litigation, are an important, and overlooked, aspect of constitutional understanding...
The Place of Stories
Posted on March 13, 2008Nancy Levit and Allen K. Rostron, University of Missouri School of Law, have published "Calling for Stories," at 75 UMKC Law Review 1127 (2007). Here is the abstract.Storytelling is a fundamental part of legal practice, teaching, and thought. Telling stories as a method of practicing law reaches back to the days of the classical Greek orators...
Literature and Law Conference at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Posted on March 12, 2008John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) is holding a one day conference entitled "Literature and Law" on Friday, April 11, 2008 on its campus at 899 Tenth Avenue (between 58th and 59th Streets). The conference will celebrate the imminent restoration of John Jay's English major, which will have a unique literature and law emphasis...
Precious Ramotswe, the TV Star
Posted on March 11, 2008Alexander McCall Smith's novels are headed for the small screen. The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency will star Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe, the thoughtful sleuth of Mr. Smith's series. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith, a former professor of medical law, is still writing...
Journalism and Murder
Posted on March 10, 2008The Guardian considers how journalists today present murderers, and may, with hindsight, tend to exaggerate the circumstances of their everyday lives. Different newspapers emphasise different aspects....The Guardian, for example, ran "profiles" of Wright and Dixie...
Another "Saint" Series?
Posted on March 10, 2008Nehst Studios is backing a new take on a television version of "The Saint", the character created by Leslie Charteris (Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin), and first brought to life on the small screen by Roger Moore (later to inherit the mantle of ("Bond. James Bond")...
Magna Carta Back On Display In DC
Posted on March 04, 2008The AP notes that that copy of Magna Carta previously owned by Ross Perot, and auctioned for more than $21 million last year, is back on display at the National Archives. The purchaser, David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group, has put it on permanent loan for the nation to enjoy.
Forthcoming Conference on Literature and Law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Posted on March 04, 2008From Andrew Majeske comes this announcement:JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE'S LITERATURE AND LAW CONFERENCE, FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2008FOR MORE INFORMATION INCLUDING REGISTRATION FORM AND HOTEL INFORMATION PLEASE GO TO http://literatureandlaw.blogspot...
Stephen Gillers, New York University
Posted on March 03, 2008Stephen Gillers, New York University School of Law, has published "A Tendency To Deprave and Corrupt: The Transformation of American Obscenity Law From Hicklin to Ulysses II," in volume 85 of the Washington University Law Review (2007). Here is the abstract...
The Last Enemy: A New BBC Thriller
Posted on March 03, 2008Peter Tatchell of The Guardian reviews the BBC1 series The Last Enemy, finding it a cautionary tale.Like millions of other viewers, I was gripped last night by the latest plot twists in BBC1's thriller series The Last Enemy, which depicts the dystopian future of a complete surveillance society, where everyone is data-based, ID-carded and CCTV-monitored 24/7...
Eli Stone
Posted on March 03, 2008A Review by Michael Asimow, Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law In the ABC television series that bears his name, Eli Stone is a senior associate at a large San Francisco law firm. He appears to be a competent attorney and, until recently, was highly valued by the firm...
More On Fan Fiction
Posted on March 03, 2008Jacqueline Lai Chung, William and Mary School of Law, has published "Drawing Idea From Expression: Creating a Legal Space For Culturally Appropriated Literary Characters," in volume 49 of the William and Mary Law Review. Here is the abstract.This paper examines the influx of secondary creativity involving culturally iconic literary characters (i...
Who's Your Daddy? Jefferson On Trial
Posted on March 03, 2008William Hyland has published "A Civil Action: Sally Hemings v. Thomas Jefferson," in volume 31 of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy (2007). Here is the abstract.Allegations that Thomas Jefferson had an affair and fathered at least one child with slave Sally Hemings have been discussed for two centuries...
Joseph Slaughter, Associate Professor
Posted on February 28, 2008Joseph Slaughter, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, has published Human Rights Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham University Press, 2007). Here's a description from the publisher's catalog...
Literature in the Health Law Curriculum
Posted on February 28, 2008We missed this interesting piece when it first appeared, but we're trying to make amends now. Stacey A. Tovino, Hamline University School of Law, published "Incorporating Literature Into a Health Law Curriculum" at 9 MSU Journal of Medicine and Law 213 (2005)...
New Museum on Crime and Punishment To Open Soon
Posted on February 28, 2008Tony Mauro of Legal Times writes of a new museum which may soon be opening in Washington, D.C., devoted to "Crime and Punishment". The National Museum of Crime and Punishment, the brainchild of attorney John Morgan, will reside at 575 7th St. N.W. Mr...
Legal and Political Themes in Battlestar Galactica
Posted on February 27, 2008Over at Concurring Opinions, Dave Hoffman, Deven Desai, and I interview Ron Moore and David Eick, creators, producers, and writers of the hit television show Battlestar Galactica.Battlestar Galactica chronicles the struggle for survival of a small band of humans who escaped a devastating genocidal attack by intelligent robots called cylons...
Looking Back at Silkwood
Posted on February 25, 2008Kelly Lynn Anders, Washburn University School of Law, has published "Reviewing Silkwood at Twenty-Five: The Reel Impact on Environmental Policy," in volume 49 of South Texas Law Review (2007). Here is the abstract.The year 2008 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of the film Silkwood, which depicted the events surrounding the apparent plutonium contamination and mysterious death of Kerr-McGee employee Karen Silkwood...
Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution
Posted on February 21, 2008Bernadette A. Meyler, Cornell University School of Law, has published "Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution." Here is the abstract.Today, as constitutionalism spreads around the globe, it is embodied de rigueur in written documents. Even places that sustained polities for centuries without a written constitution have begun to succumb to the lure of writtenness...
Bezanson on Performance Art
Posted on February 21, 2008Randall P. Bezanson, University of Iowa College of Law, has published "Performing Art,", in a modified version in the forthcoming Art and Freedom of Speech (University of Illinois Press, 2008), in the Federal Communications Law Journal (April 2008), and as University of Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper 05-08...
NBC To Offer Full Episodes Of Old Favorites
Posted on February 20, 2008NBC will begin offering full episodes of favorite old dramas, including Kojak, Miami Vice, and the Alfred Hitchcock Hour (on NBC.com), the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers (on SciFi.com), the Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Night Gallery on ChillerTV...
Now I Am the Master! (And the Little League Coach) Darth Vader as Everyman
Posted on February 19, 2008NPR's Andrea Shea seeks to deconstruct Star Wars's Darth Vader and discovers there's a touchy-feeley side to everybody's favorite tough guy. Read (and hear) more here.
Upcoming Conference at the University of Chicago Law School
Posted on February 19, 2008Announcement of an Upcoming ConferenceEmotion in Context Exploring the Interaction between Emotions and Legal Institutions May 9-10, 2008 The University of Chicago Law School1111 East 60th Street, Chicago The design of legal institutions is based on implicit and explicit assumptions about human behavior, for example assumptions about how people individually or collectively respond to new information, assess risks, or decide whom to trust or fear, about what motivates people to forgive or to seek vengeance, or about how to promote or discourage empathy...
Some New Publications on Law and the Humanties
Posted on February 14, 2008Here is a very selected list of recently published law review articles on law and the humanties.Cavallaro, Rosanna, Chester Himes?s Cotton Comes to Harlem: A Reparations Parable, 19 Cardozo Stud. L. & Lit. 103 (2007).Dinunzio, Peter, Elimor Kim, and Robert Whitman, Karl N...
Justice Alito On "The Sopranos"
Posted on February 14, 2008Debra Cassens Weiss notes that Justice Alito doesn't like those Italian stereotypes revived through The Sopranos, at least, so the Trenton Times reports. Ms. Weiss says in her piece in the ABA Journal that the Associate Justice finds that a "trifecta" (Italian-Americans, New Jersey and gangsters) come together in shows like the popular HBO series...
Symbols and the Law
Posted on February 14, 2008Caspar van Woensel, University of Leiden, Faculty of Law, and member of the Restitutiecommissie (Dutch Spoliation Advisory Panel), has published "Symbols and the Law", in BRAND, GOD, AND BAN: IMPROPER USE AND MONOPOLIZATION OF SIGNS WITH A HIGH SYMBOLIC VALUE, Amstelveen, Netherlands: deLex, 2007...
Sherwin on Law and Film
Posted on February 14, 2008Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School, has published "What Screen Do You Have In Mind? Contesting the Visual Context of Law and Film Studies," in STUDIES IN LAW, POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Austin Sarat, ed., Elsevier, 2008. Here is the abstract.Law on the screen gives rise to a distinct way of doing jurisprudence...
Talking Trash About Thrillers
Posted on February 03, 2008In today's New York Times, Charles McGrath has a piece about writer Joan Brady, the effects of glue-sniffing on her literary career, and why so many people think detective and mystery fiction isn't "real literature." Indeed, Ms. Brady won 115,000 pounds in a settlement after a ruling that glue in the environment around her home had affected her...
A Novel Interpretation of the Second Amendment
Posted on January 31, 2008The late Peter B. Junger, long a professor at Case Western Reserve Law School, offered this unusual interpretation of the Second Amendment. Here is the abstract of "The Original Plain Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms," as Case Legal Research Studies Paper 08-01...
Eli Stone, a New Lawyer Drama, Premieres Tonight on ABC
Posted on January 31, 2008The New York Times's Gina Bellafonte reviews the new ABC lawyer drama Eli Stone here. I'll be posting my own review after I catch the premiere episode. It airs tonight at 10 p.m. EST, 9 p.m. Central time.
New Works on Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
Posted on January 29, 2008The Times Literary Supplement has a review of two new works about Arthur Conan Doyle. Dinah Birch comments on both Andrew Lycett's biography Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes, and Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley's edition of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters...
Is Interdisciplinary Legal Study a Luxury?
Posted on January 17, 2008Over at Balkinization, Professor Brian Tamanaha (St. John's School of Law) argues that most law schools should abandon their vigorous pursuit of interdisciplinary studies in law: [P]erhaps detailed knowledge of the social sciences?anything beyond rudimentary information every educated person should possess?is irrelevant to the practice of law...
Book Review: Harold Schechter's The Devil's Gentleman
Posted on January 15, 2008Harold Schechter, The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial that Ushered in the Twentieth CenturyBallantine Books (October 2007) Harold Schechter, an American literature professor at CUNY, has written a gripping account of the criminal trial and appeal of Roland Molineux, a case that grabbed headlines throughout the late 1890s...
Images of Justice
Posted on January 14, 2008Judith Resnick, Yale University Law School, has published "Representing Justice: From Renaissance Iconography to Twenty-First Century Courthouses," as 151 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 139 (2007).All over the globe, nations rely on a statue of a large hulking woman (sometimes named Justice, sometimes Justicia, sometimes Themis, and usually holding scales and sword) to symbolize that their justice systems have aspirations of fairness and impartiality and also to lay a claim to power...
Submission Deadline Extended for Law and Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop
Posted on January 11, 2008UCLA School of Law, Columbia Law School, University of Southern California Center for Law, History & Culture, and Georgetown University Law Center invite submissions for the sixth meeting of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop to be held at UCLA Law School in Los Angeles, CA on June 8 & 9, 2008...
The Hossack Case, Law and Literature
Posted on January 10, 2008Margaret Raymond reviews Patricia L. Bryan and Thomas Wolf, Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland, published by Algonquin Books (2005), at 57 J. Legal Educ. 293 (2007). In it she compares the book, which is legal history, and which details the real life murder of John Hossack, and the subsequent trial of his wife Margaret, and the fictionalization of the case by Susan Glaspell in her works Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers...
Law and Lit in the Journal of Legal Education
Posted on January 08, 2008The current issue of the Journal of Legal Education includes two articles of interest: Amnon Reichman, "Law, Literature, and Empathy: Between Withholding and Reserving Judgment," 56 J. Legal Educ. 296 (June 2006) and Martha Nussbaum, "Reply to Amnon Reichman," 56 J...
Call For Papers/Abstracts/Submissions
Posted on January 04, 2008Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions7th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences May 29 - June 1, 2008 Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Honolulu Hawaii, USASubmission Deadline: February 14, 2008Co-Sponsored by:University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban NeighborhoodsWeb address: Email address: social@hicsocial...
Henning Mankell's New Novel
Posted on December 28, 2007The Globe and Mail's Carl Wilson discusses Henning Mankell's new crime novel Kennedy's Brain, and his commitment to social causes. Mr. Mankell is the author of the police procedurals featuring Swedish inspector Kurt Wallander.[Cross posted to the Seamless Web].
Rights for the Creators of Fan-Fiction and Others Involved in the Creation of Transformative Works
Posted on December 18, 2007The new Organization for Transformative Works intends to protect "the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms."Here's its mission statement:We envision a future in which all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity...
Professor Dave Hoffman Interviews Author Pat Rothfuss
Posted on December 12, 2007Over at Concurring Opinions, where I blog a lot, my co-blogger Dave Hoffman has an interesting interview with fantasy fiction writer Pat Rothfuss. Dave questions Rothfuss about the legal issues in his book, The Name of the Wind.
It's Coming From Inside the House
Posted on December 10, 2007According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor F. Miguel Valenti, on the faculty at Arizona State University, believes 1) that students should see films as a whole, not in little snippets, and 2) that the film Friday the 13th has a great deal to answer for, stylistically speaking...
Books Published in Law and Literature, 2007
Posted on December 10, 2007Here's a roundup of some titles published in law and literature in the past year. This list is by no means comprehensive.Cantarella, Eva, and Lorenzo Gagliardi, eds., Diritto e teatro in Grecia e a Roma (Milano: LED, 2007).Chaplin, Susan, The Gothic and the Rule of Law, 1764-1820 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)...
Left-Wing Ideology and the U.S. Novel
Posted on December 10, 2007Walter J. Kendall, John Marshall Law School, has published "Law and Norms in Left-Wing Novels of the U. S. Mid-Twentieth Century." Here is the abstract.Each of the major law-based structuring or ordering systems of society - markets, regulation, litigation, and democracy - should work as a path to a good and just society...
Call for Papers: Writing the Midwest
Posted on December 06, 2007Call for papers for panels on law and literature in the Midwest at ?Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of Scholars, Creative Writers, and Filmmakers,? the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, May 8-10, 2008 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan...
Law in the Plays of Elmer Rice
Posted on December 06, 2007Randolph Jonakait, New York Law School, has published "Law in the Plays of Elmer Rice," at 19 Law and Literature 401 (2007). Here is the abstract.While novels, short stories, television shows, movies, and classic dramas are often analyzed for insights into the law, modern plays are seldom similarly examined...
Penelope Pether on Australian Law and Literature
Posted on December 06, 2007Penelope Pether, Villanova University School of Law, has published "The Prose and the Passion," as 66(3) On Crime and the Law of 2007. It is also Villanova/Public Policy Research Paper 07-20. Here is the abstract. This essay takes the late Robert Cover's insight that ?No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning,? and thus that ?For every constitution there is an epic? as the starting point for a reading of Australian legal and literary texts about the relationship of the nation and ?outsiders,? as between constitutional subjects and texts...
The Beeb and Microwaved Shakespeare
Posted on December 03, 2007The BBC offers the productions (I use the word loosely) of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, a group that distills the Bard's plays to their essences. King Lear merits fifteen seconds, Othello turns into rap, and Macbeth, according to the group, was originally recorded on eight-track back in the sixteenth century...
Using Film to Teach Legal Writing: The Case of Dogville
Posted on November 28, 2007Elyse Pepper, St. John's University School of Law, has published "The Case for "Thinking Like a Filmmaker": Using Lars von Trier's Dogville as a Model For Writing a Statement of Facts," as St. John's Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-0083. It will also be published in the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute...
Legal Times notes that this year's
Posted on November 26, 2007Legal Times notes that this year's Shakespeare Theatre Company's mock trial presented the spectacle of Theodore Olsen, former solicitor general of the United States, and now with the firm of Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, defending President Edward Plantagenet, Jr...
Erik Jensen, Case Western Reserve
Posted on November 16, 2007Erik Jensen, Case Western Reserve Law School, has published "Law School Attire: A Call for a Uniform Uniform Code." It is forthcoming in the Oklahoma City University Law Review and is available as Case Legal Studies Research Paper 07-30. Here is the abstract...
Droit Moral, IP, and the World of Harry Potter
Posted on November 16, 2007Gary Pulsinelli, University of Tennessee College of Law, has published "Harry Potter and the (Re)Order of the Artists: Are We Muggles Or Goblins?" Here is the abstract. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, author J.K. Rowling attributes to goblins a very interesting view of ownership rights in artistic works...
Singing Law School Professor
Posted on November 14, 2007Today's NPR Morning Edition has a story about Mark Pettit, the singing Contracts Professor of Boston University Law School. According to reporter Tovia Smith, Professor Pettit really spices up the classroom with student-provided parodies of standards like Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and Britney Spears' "[You're] Not That Innocent...
Arthur Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes: The Slater Case
Posted on November 12, 2007Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow, has published "Arthur and Oscar (and Sherlock): The Reconstructive Trial and the 'Hermeneutics of Suspicion'" in the International Commentary on Evidence, volume 5, article 4. Here is the abstract.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a significant contribution to the campaign to free Oscar Slater, wrongly convicted of murder in 1909, and imprisoned for eighteen and a half years...
Regina Austin, University of Pennsylvania
Posted on November 04, 2007Regina Austin, University of Pennsylvania Law School, has published "'Super Size Me' and the Conundrum of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class for the Contemporary Law-Genre Documentary Filmmaker," at 40 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 683 (2007). Here is the abstract...
Conference on Law and Popular Culture
Posted on October 30, 2007Marquette University Law School is hosting a Conference on Law and Popular Culture November 1st to celebrate the publication of Law and Popular Culture: Text, Notes, and Questions by LEXIS Publishing. The conference is being organized by David Papke, of Marquette.
Call for Papers
Posted on October 30, 2007CFP: Literature and Law: A CelebrationApril 11, 2008 (Friday)John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) (59th Street and 10th Avenue?near Lincoln Center in Manhattan) Conference Organizer and Contact Person: Andrew Majeske, ajmajeske@gmail.com This conference aims to bring scholars of literature and law into an interdisciplinary setting to share the fruits of their research and scholarship...
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