Law & Humanities Blog |
- Staging Science
- A Review of David Gurnham's "Memory, Imagination, Justice"
- Evaluating International Tribunals
| Posted: 27 Apr 2011 12:30 PM PDT Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University Department of Science and Technology Studies, has published Staging High-Visibility Science: Media Orientation in Genome Research in The Sciences' Media Connection--Public Communication and Its Repercussions: Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook 152 (S. Roedder, M. Franzen and P. Weingart eds.; Springer 2011). Here is the abstract. The medialization concept was developed using differentiation theory and has been applied analytically at the level of systems. This paper develops a complementary perspective for considering medialization that focuses on media orientation as it is expressed in interaction. How do individual scientists or science-intensive organizations manifest an orientation to the media? In what ways, and how intensely, does the media fit into their activities? To address these questions, the paper develops a framework that conceptualizes media orientation as a specific form of what Erving Goffman calls "theatrical self-consciousness." The tools of dramaturgical analysis are brought to the staging of science, providing a vocabulary for exploring science-media coupling not as connections between abstract systems but as strategic interaction. The focus on theatrical self-consciousness casts a spotlight on questions about precisely what actors seek to make visible to whom and when. An ethnographic study of genome research during the Human Genome Project provides data. The paper examines interactions surrounding a specific episode: the announcement that a private firm, Celera Genomics, intended to sequence the human genome before the public project could. The analysis provides a look at the specific and varied ways in which members of a particular research community related to the media. The conclusion distinguishes among four facets of media orientation (the actor as performer, as audience, as commentator, and as builder of media relations infrastructure). Finally, it notes some possible methodological implications.The full text is not available from SSRN. |
A Review of David Gurnham's "Memory, Imagination, Justice"
Posted: 27 Apr 2011 12:27 PM PDT
Julia J. A. Shaw, De Montfort University, has published A Review of Memory, Imagination, Justice: Intersections of Law and Literature by David Gurnham. Here is the abstract.
Memory, Imagination, Justice: Intersections of Law and Literature is a highly-recommended read. It has several merits in that it not only offers a useful wide-ranging reference point for academic and practising lawyers, philosophers and sociologists, it also provides a provocative and engaging addition to the existing body of literary jurisprudence.Download the review from SSRN at the link.
Evaluating International Tribunals
Posted: 27 Apr 2011 12:23 PM PDT
Richard Ashby Wilson has published Humanity's Histories: Evaluating the Historical Accounts of International Tribunals and Truth Commissions. Here is the abstract.
Since the trials of high-ranking Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg during 1945-1946, commentators have been asking whether courts are the best place to write a history of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This debate gained momentum during the 1961 Eichmann trial in Israel and the Holocaust trials in France in the 1970s and 1980s, and took on new relevance during the wave of democratizations in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1990s, the United Nations and major donor governments adopted official policies stating that the task of writing a new official history was central to facilitating both co-existence and accountability after authoritarianism and violent conflict, and they promoted new institutions such as truth and reconciliation commissions to fulfill this undertaking. Now it is time to critically evaluate this range of institutions and ask: have international tribunals or commissions of inquiry actually provided significant insights into the origins and causes of political violence? How might states or international institutions document human rights violations in a way that is comprehensive and engages in a meaningful reckoning with the past?Download the paper from SSRN at the link.
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