Miscellaneous

Brundage On the Image of Lawyers In Medieval Literature

Posted on December 06, 2010
I ran across this piece today; it dates from 2002, so some of you may be familiar with it already. I think it's extremely interesting. It's by James A. Brundage, the distinguished medievalist and cultural historian. In this piece he addresses medieval attitudes toward lawyers, tracing influences back to the Romans...

The Scottish Enlightment's Influence on the Drafting of Article III

Posted on December 03, 2010
James E. Pfander and Daniel D. Birk, both of Northwestern University School of Law, are publishing Article III and the Scottish Enlightenment, forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. Here is the abstract.Historically-minded scholars and jurists invariably turn to English law and precedents in attempting to recapture the legal world of the framers...

Law and Culture In Israel

Posted on November 30, 2010
Zvi H. Triger, The College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) School of Law, has published Law's Culture: Reflections on Menachem Mautner's Books on Law and Culture (Hebrew), at 32 Tel Aviv University Law Review 481 (2010). Here is the abstract.This is a review essay on law and culture in Israel, which takes Menachem Mautner's two recently published books as its departure point for broad analysis of the tensions that characterize Israeli discourse on these issues...

Defamation and Humor

Posted on November 30, 2010
Laura E. Little, Temple University School of Law, is publishing Just a Joke: Defamatory Humor and Incongruity's Promise, in volume 21 of the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal (2011).  Here is the abstract.Humor often arises as a defense in defamation actions, with defendants claiming that their challenged communication was "just a joke...

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Call For Papers

Posted on November 30, 2010
From McGill University's IPLAIInternational Conference on Arts, Ideas, and the BaroqueHosted by the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, McGill Universityin collaboration with the Montréal Baroque Festival24-26 June 2011 2011 Theme: Deadly SinsCALL FOR PAPERSThis conference seeks to examine the ?baroque? in the early modern world as well as its echoes and resonances across time...

Making"The Wire" Meaningful

Posted on November 24, 2010
I. Bennett Capers, Hofstra University School of Law, is publishing Crime, Legitimacy, Our Criminal Network, and the Wire in volume 8 of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law (2011).Here is the abstract.It perhaps comes as no surprise that, at a gathering of four criminal law professors over drinks and dinner, the subject would turn to the HBO series The Wire...

Reflections On "The Wire"

Posted on November 24, 2010
Alafair S. Burke, Hofstra University School of Law, is publishing I Got the Shotgun: Reflections on The Wire, Prosecutors and Omar Little. in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.The Wire is a show about institutions, the people trapped inside of them, and a society made static by their inaction, indifference, and ineptitude...

Science Fiction and the Detective Novel

Posted on November 16, 2010
From the New Scientist, April 30, 2010: The ten greatest science fiction detective novels. Among them: Philip Kerr's A Philosophical Investigation, Kristine Kathryn Rusch's The Retrieval Artist novels (don't they count as more than one?), and Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel...

Literary Appearances

Posted on November 16, 2010
Meet a new police detective, Scott Cowen of the Brick Township, NJ, police force. He's a character in James Patterson's newest novel, Cross-Fire. If he reminds you of Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University, don't urge President Cowen to sue for defamation, or false light, or infringement of his right of publicity, or any of that good stuff...

Food Wars

Posted on November 16, 2010
Ernesto Hernandez Lopez, Chapman University School of Law, has published LA?s Taco Truck War: How Law Cooks Food Culture Contests as Chapman University Law Research Paper No. 10-29. Here is the abstract.This paper examines the Los Angeles ?Taco Truck War? (2008-9), when the city of Los Angeles and LA county used parking regulations to restrict ?loncheros,? i...

The Origins of Legal Language

Posted on November 16, 2010
Peter Tiersma, Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), has published The Origins of Legal Language in the Oxford Handbook on Language and Law (L. Solan and P. Tiersma, eds., 2010). Here is the abstract.This paper examines the origins of legal language. It begins with a discussion of language in the civil law system, which originated in Rome, was refined in Byzantium, rediscovered in Italy, codified in Prussia and France, and ultimately spread throughout most of Europe and, via colonialism, to many other parts of the world...

Criminal Law and "The Wire"

Posted on November 12, 2010
Susan A. Bandes, DePaul University College of Law, and Florida State University College of Law, has published And All the Pieces Matter: Thoughts on The Wire and the Criminal Justice System, in volume 8 of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law (2011)...

The Meaning of Words

Posted on November 12, 2010
Philip A. Rubin, Duke University Law School, has published War of the Words: How Courts Can Use Dictionaries in Accordance with Textualist Principles, at 60 Duke Law Journal 167 (2010). Here is the abstract.Dictionaries have an aura of authority about them--words mean what the dictionary says they mean...

Indiana University Center for Law, Society & Culture Accepting Applications for Jerome Hall Postdoctoral Fellowship

Posted on November 11, 2010
The Center for Law, Society, and Culture at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law?Bloomington will appoint up to three Jerome Hall Postdoctoral Fellows for the 2011-2012 academic year. We invite applications from pre-tenure scholars, recently awarded PhDs, and those with equivalent professional degrees to conduct research at Indiana University and participate in the activities of the Center, which include an annual symposium, a colloquia series, and regular workshop series...

Cloning and Talmudic Law

Posted on November 10, 2010
Barbara P. Billauer, Foundation for Law and Science Centers, Inc.; Institute of World Politics, has published Human Reproductive Cloning: The Intersection of Kaballa, the Bible and Biology - Parable, Exegesis and Modern Science Under traditional Jewish Law (halacha), assessment of human reproductive cloning (HRC) has been formulated along four lines of inquiry, which I discussed in Part I of this paper...

Portia's View of Justice in "The Merchant of Venice"

Posted on November 10, 2010
Roberta Linciano, University of Salento, has published "'Is that the law?': Portia's Mockery of Justice in The Merchant of Venice," in the Italian Society for Law and Literature (January 2010). Here is the abstract.In this paper I examine the role performed by the disguised lawyer Portia during the trial Shylock vs...

Graduate Student Stipends Available for ASLCH Conference Next Spring

Posted on November 10, 2010
ReminderThe Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities will award up to eight $200 travel stipends to graduate students who plan to present work at the 2011 ASLCH Conference, March 11-12, in Las Vegas, Nevada. In awarding these stipends, the Committee will take into consideration both the merit of the proposed paper and the applicant's proximity to the conference site...

Sherlock Holmes and the Evil Heir

Posted on November 09, 2010
Stephen R. Alton, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, has published The Game is Afoot!: The Significance of Gratuitous Transfers in the Sherlock Holmes Canon. Here is the abstract.This article presents a recently discovered and previously unpublished manuscript written by John H...

Law, Neuroscience, and Magic

Posted on November 08, 2010
A new book on that very interesting new topic, neuroscience and magic. Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde have published Sleights of Mind (Henry Holt, 2010)  about what happens in our brains when our eyes deceive eyes. Magicians and con men (and women) have known about this for centuries, but scientists and lawyers are just now beginning to take note...

Kafka, Foucault, and Writing as Resistance

Posted on November 08, 2010
Nicholas Dungey has published Franz Kafka and Michele Foucault: Writing as Resistance as a Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper. Here is the abstract.One of the most pressing challenges to Foucault's notion of the self and disciplinary power concerns the issue of resistance...

Telling Stories About the Founders

Posted on November 04, 2010
Tom Donnelly, Harvard Law School, has published Our Forgotten Founders: Reconstruction, Public Education, and Constitutional Heroism, at 58 Cleveland State Law Review 115 (2010). Here is the abstract.This Article examines a set of constitutional stories that has not been the subject of focused study by legal scholars ? the stories we tell our schoolchildren about the Founding and Reconstruction...

Adam Smith and the Judiciary

Posted on November 04, 2010
Robin Paul Malloy, Syracuse University College of Law, has published Adam Smith in the Courts of the United States, at 56 Loyola Law Review 33 (2010). Here is the abstract.Be it on topics of property, contract, commerce, trade, tax, legal history, or other matters, jurisprudence in the United States often invokes economic thinking in providing a rationale for legal outcomes...

Slavery As Immigration

Posted on October 26, 2010
Rhonda V. Magee, University of San Francisco Law School, has published Slavery as Immigration? in volume 44 of the University of San Francisco Law Review (2009). Here is the abstract.Slavery as Immigration? In this essay, the author argues that transatlantic slavery was, in significant part, an immigration system of a particularly pernicious sort ? a system of forced migration immigration aimed at fulfilling the nascent country's needs for a controllable labor population, and desire for a racialized one...

Audio Files Available For Morawetz Book On Law and Literature

Posted on October 26, 2010
Now available from Wolters/Kluwer: Audio Files to accompany Thomas Morawetz's book Literature and the Law (originally published 2007). More here.

Some New Books of Interest

Posted on October 22, 2010
Some new books of interestThe Creation of the "IUS Commune": From "Casus" to "Regula" edited by John W. Cairns and Paul J. du Plessis (John W. Cairns and Paul J. du Plessis, eds. Edinburgh University Press, dist. Columbia University Press, 2010).Jackson, Cassandra, Violence, Visual Culture, and the Black Male Body (Routledge, 2010)...

Theory of Sovereignty In the Hebrew Bible

Posted on October 20, 2010
Geoffrey P. Miller, New York University School of Law, has published Sovereignty and Conquest in the Hebrew Bible, as NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-61. Here is the abstract.This article examines the Hebrew Bible?s theory of sovereignty with special reference to the book of Joshua...

Documentary Films, Law and Justice

Posted on October 20, 2010
Cynthia D. Bond, The John Marshall Law School, has published Documenting Law: Reality & Representation on Trial. Here is the abstract.Documentary films frequently address issues of social and political injustice; thus, however indirectly, implicating law as their subject...

Summer Institute in Legal History and Post-Doc at Wisconsin

Posted on October 19, 2010
Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History at WisconsinNext two week biennial session will take place in June 2011; apply by 1/15/11.Complete information and application instructions can be found athttp://law.wisc.edu/ils/hurst_institute.htmThe Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History is a biennial event sponsored by the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School in conjunction with the American Society for Legal History (ASLH)...

New Law and the Humanities Books From Ashgate Publishing

Posted on October 11, 2010
New books available or due out soon from Ashgate Publishing:Cathrine O. Frank, Law, Literature, and the Transmission of Culture in England, 1837-1925 (2010)Christopher Frank, Master and Servant Law: Chartists, Trade Unions, Radical Lawyers and the Magistracy in England, 1840-1865 (2010)Kelly Hager, Dickens and the Rise of Divorce: The Failed Marriage Plot and the Novel Tradition (2010)Henry Ansgar Kelly, Law and Religion in Chaucer's England (2010) (Variorum Collected Studies Series; CS957)Dennis R...

Call For Papers

Posted on October 11, 2010
1st Global ConferenceQueer Sexualities13th to 15th May 2011Warsaw, PolandCall for Papers20 years since the reclamation of the word 'queer'by the LGBTQ community this conference would like to take a closer look at broad themes of queer sexualities through time and space, non-normative sexual constructions and queer sexual identities from a diverse range of perspectives by scholars working in various academic disciplines...

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