»Unlabelled » Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

Law & Humanities Blog

Legal Humor

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 04:18 PM PDT

The Zoopreme Court: Equal Justice Under Paws.

Hat Tip to Steven Jamar of Howard University School of Law.

Sidney Lumet

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 09:45 AM PDT

From the New York Times (subscription may be required): discussion of the legacy of the late director Sidney Lumet. Mr. Lumet directed a number of classic law-related films, including the great 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, and Network. He also directed Find Me Guilty (2006), starring Vin Diesel, which dramatized the story of Jack DiNorscio, who defended himself against federal charges ("I'm a gagster, not a gangster"), Deathtrap, Murder On the Orient Express (1974), All the King's Men (1958), and several episodes of the television series Danger, which aired from 1950-1954 and Crime Photographer, starring Darren McGavin, which aired in 1951. He also had a bit part in the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate.

A Lawyer/Poet For National Poetry Month

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 09:28 AM PDT

The Spring 2011 issue of William Mitchell On Law's features its graduate Tim Nolan ('89) , who practices with McGrann, Shea, Carnival, Straughn, & Lamb in Minneapolis, and who published a collection of poetry, The Sound of It, with New Rivers Press in 2008. Mr. Nolan publishes regularly in poetry magazines and has another collection of his work due out soon.
Here is a link to one of his poems, "Bullhead," recently featured on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) News.

The Conspirator: Robert Redford's New Film About the Lincoln Assassination

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 09:15 AM PDT

In the National Law Journal's March 28, 2011 issue: Leigh Jones, "In Redford's film, parallels to the present," at page 8. This article discusses Robert Redford's new movie, The Conspirator, about  Mary Surratt and her connections to the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The film is in limited release April 15, is rated PG-13, and stars James McAvoy, Robin Wright, and Kevin Kline.

More here from the NLJ website (subscription may be required). Here's a link to a video about Frederick Aiken, Mrs. Surratt's attorney. Here's a link to an early review.

Setting the Scenes of the Crimes

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 07:33 AM PDT

Alan W. Norrie, University of Warwick School of Law, has published Inaugural Lecture 'The Scene and the Crime' as Warwick School of Law Research Paper No. 2011-05. Here is the abstract.


What is the scene in relation to the crime? That question can be answered in many ways. It may be the legal process, the political, cultural and literary milieu, the social conditions, the historical context. This is an area where a thousand flowers may bloom. I don't intend to pick them here, but to focus on where I have come from, and where I am headed. What I am going to say this evening will be tentative, and in a way risky, because I focus on something that contextual lawyers have generally avoided, perhaps for good reason. What I am going to dip my toes in is, indeed, something generally not seen as contextual at all, and that is how an understanding of ethical categories of good and evil may be required for the scene and the crime.
Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Understanding Allegiances Through Narrative

Posted: 13 Apr 2011 07:27 AM PDT

Jean LeClair, University of Montreal Faculty of Law, has published Federalism, Socrates and Ulysses. Here is the abstract.


Aboriginal scholars sometimes convey abstract ideas through the use of stories. And so, as a means of introducing a thesis about federalism developed in a longer piece written in French, this short paper relates two stories that express some of the most basic ideas that, according to the author, a normative theory of federalism entails. These stories enable one to understand that federalism could be understood as a conceptual institutionalization of reflexivity; as an intellectual posture that makes it mandatory to think problems with a critical eye toward both ourselves and others.

A true federal spirit requires that we be "gadflies", "stinging bees" always on the lookout for totalizing approaches. Approaches whose conceptual coherence requires that one aspect of reality be obliterated.

Sovereignty, nationalism, cultural authenticity, rights, as "all or nothing" concepts, are unable to explain the complexity of the relationships between aboriginal peoples and Euro-Canadians. All these concepts call for reality to be jammed into one single pigeon-hole.

Instead of emphasizing the particular nature of the relationships between individuals, between groups and between individuals and groups, these concepts seek to identify a quintessential substance: the existence of a "state" where sovereignty is concerned; of a volkgeist or "spirit of the people" where nationalism is appealed to; a cultural essence where authenticity is invoked and, finally, the definition of what distinguishes so radically a person that it deserves to be elevated to the level of a "right".

From these perspectives, nurturing many allegiances is oftentimes conceived as a symptom of false consciousness. However, envisaged from a federal perspective, duality, and even ambivalence, is not pathology. At the same time, one must recognize that individuals do sometimes feel a stronger attachment to one particular political community or social group.

Federalism is not only an attempt at acknowledging the existence of these social groups to which the citizen's multiple attachments are engrafted. It also aims at structuring relationships so that these individuals and groups can coexist peacefully together. Unlike the concept of sovereignty, nation, cultural authenticity and rights, federalism makes compromise, concessions and even renunciation plausible, possible and honourable.
Download the paper from SSRN at the link.
Bookmark and Share

Blog Archive