Home » Archives for May 2011

Posted: 31 May 2011 09:07 AM PDT

President Barack Obama is naming Richard H. Weisberg to the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. Professor Weisberg is the founding and current President of the Law and Humanities Institute. Below is an abbreviated biography, taken from a White House press release.

Richard H. Weisberg is the Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. He began his teaching and scholarly career as Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, and then went on to practice and teach law. In 2009, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government for his work, together with US State Department and French governmental officials, in providing restitution from France to victims of the wartime Vichy regime. A recipient of Guggenheim, ACLS, and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, he is the author of four books including Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France; Poethics; and The Failure of the Word. He is the founding and current president of the Law & Humanities Institute and founding and general editor of the periodical, Law and Literature. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review, and his Ph.D from Cornell University.

Visualizing Law

Posted: 31 May 2011 08:59 AM PDT

Congratulations to Professor Richard K. Sherwin, whose newest publication, Visualizing Law in the Age of the Digital Baroque: Arabesques and Entanglements (Routledge), forms part of the basis of what promises to be a spectacular international conference, Visualizing Law In the Digital Age, at Cardozo Law School, October 19, 2011, and is co-sponsored by Cardozo and New York Law School. In addition to Professor Sherwin, other speakers include Professor Amy Adler (NYU Law School), Professor Christian Biet (Universite de Paris X), Professor Christian Delange (Universite de Paris VII), Professor James Elkins (School of Art Institute, University of Chicago), Professor Peter Goodrich (Cardozo Law School), Professor Desmond Manderson (McGill University), Professor W. J. T.

Mitchell (University of Chicago), Professor Francis "Jay" Mootz (University of Nevada Las Vegas Law School), Professor Renata Salecl (London School of Economics, Visiting Professor, Cardozo Law School), Professor Austin Sarat (Amherst College), and Professor Alison Young (University of Melbourne). More here and and here (a guest post from Professor Sherwin at the Hannah Arendt blog). NB: the webaddress given in the Routledge ad (www.nyls.edu/visualizinglaw either is not correct or does not seem to be working right now and I could not find another address for the symposium).

Legal Narrative and Statuary

Posted: 31 May 2011 07:25 AM PDT

Sally Greene, Center for the Study of the American South, has published Judge Thomas Ruffin and the Shadows of Southern History, in volume 17 of Southern Cultures (Fall 2011). Here is the abstract.

The statue of North Carolina Supreme Court Judge Thomas Ruffin that stands in a shadowy alcove at the entrance of a state court building in Raleigh was erected in 1915, toward the conclusion of a period of memorialization in the American South that was intended to reinforce in the public's imagination a coherent story of American history that began with the Founding Fathers, continued through Robert E. Lee and the narrative of the "Lost Cause," and worked to evoke "old family heritage, Anglo-Saxon supremacy, and military and political heroism." Although Ruffin's authorship of State v. Mann (1829), a case well known in its time (and now) for the stridency of the rhetoric with which Ruffin upholds the "power of the master," is nowhere mentioned in the documentation surrounding the creation and dedication of the statue, that connection would have been inescapable to a white audience, which would have been largely sympathetic. But an emancipationist counternarrative, which was never really silenced, survives as a reminder of the strength and resilience of generations of Americans committed to equal justice under the Constitution. A recognition of this counternarrative has the potential to change the way we view Ruffin's statue: the statement of the fixed and irrefutable power of law that it was no doubt intended to make unfolds into a conversation about the uses of law by the powerful. Such a shift of perspective, in turn, invites us into a broader reconsideration of our ways of navigating the contested terrain of public commemorative art.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Hay Festival Coverage

Posted: 31 May 2011 07:14 AM PDT

From the Daily Telegraph's Hay 2011 Festival coverage: a short article on famous (or infamous) literary feuds. Which ones catch your fancy? Mary McCarthy vs. Lillian Hellman, and the celebrated accusation that "'every every word she (Hellman) writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the' "? More Hay Festival coverage here (video/audio).

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Medical Humanities Blog

On Inequalities and Disparities

Posted: 31 May 2011 06:38 AM PDT

I have a guest post on the subject over at the very fine Inequalities blog. Here's the opening paragraph:

The terms we use to describe inequality are important. They're important because there are different perspectives about (1) what terms should be used for (2) which referents (3) in which circumstances, and these reveal what is actually at stake. Thus, whether the term "disparities" is used in lieu of "inequalities" or "inequities" actually matters a great deal, at least in part because there is an inescapable ethical valence to the term "inequities" that is absent from the more neutral term "disparities." The question is whether the ethical valence is something that ought to be included in public health policy discourse, or whether, given the difficulty in measuring it, it should be avoided where possible.

Comments welcome.

Law & Humanities Blog

Redefining "Indian-ness"
The King James Bible and the Founding of the Republic
Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili On the Global Legal Community

Redefining "Indian-ness"

Posted: 30 May 2011 11:38 AM PDT

Gregory Ablasky, University of Pennsylvania, has published Making Indians 'White': The Judicial Abolition of Native Slavery in Revolutionary Virginia and its Racial Legacy at 159 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1457 (2011). Here is the abstract.

This article traces the history of a series of "freedom suits" brought by Virginia slaves between 1772 and 1806, in which the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia judicially abolished nearly two centuries of American Indian slavery in the colony by ruling that slaves who could prove maternal descent from Native Americans were prima facie free. Delving first into the legal history of Indian slavery in colonial America, it then examines the doctrinal shift that led the courts to redefine natives as unfit subjects for enslavement, and argues that its roots lie in a racialization of slavery that separated Africans from Natives.

The final section explores the national legacy of these rulings, tracing the spread of these legal principles throughout the antebellum United States and discussing how the racial ideology that divided Native Americans and African-Americans continues to pose legal hurdles in contemporary Indian law cases involving tribal recognition and the Cherokee freedmen.Download the article from SSRN at the link.

The King James Bible and the Founding of the Republic

Posted: 30 May 2011 11:28 AM PDT

Bernard M. Levinson, University of Minnesota, and Joshua A. Berman have published The King James Bible at 400: Scripture, Statecraft, and the American Founding in the History Channel Magazine, November 2010, at page 1. Here is the abstract.

This short article addressed to a broader readership investigates the impact of the King James Bible upon the American founding. In order to show that impact, the article's first half portrays the political context for the formation of the King James, charts the influence of the Bible upon early modern political thought, and then sketches the impact of the KJV upon the rhetoric and political thought of the Founders. The essay is accompanied by a timeline.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili On the Global Legal Community

Posted: 30 May 2011 11:17 AM PDT

Andreas Wagner, Goethe University Frankfurt, Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders," has published Francisco De Vitoria and Alberico Gentili on the Legal Character of the Global Commonwealth, in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2011). Here is the abstract.

In discussing the works of 16th-century theorists Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, this article examines how two different conceptions of a global legal community affect the legal character of the international order and the obligatory force of international law. For Vitoria the legal bindingness of ius gentium necessarily presupposes an integrated character of the global commonwealth that leads him to as it were ascribe legal personality to the global community as a whole. But then its legal status and its consequences have to be clarified. For Gentili on the other hand, sovereign states in their plurality are the pinnacle of the legal order(s). His model of a globally valid ius gentium then oscillates between being analogous to private law, depending on individual acceptance by states and being natural law, appearing in a certain sense as a form rather of morality than of law.

The full text is not available for download from SSRN.

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Law & Humanities Blog

Interpreting Constitutions

Posted: 27 May 2011 01:46 PM PDT

Joel I. Colon-Rios, Victoria University of Wellington, has published Law, Language, and the New Latin American Constitutions, in the New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law (2011) and the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review (2011). Here is the abstract.

Latin America has many languages and many constitutions. This article provides a general overview of the ways in which some constitutions of states of Latin America relate to the multi-lingual context in which they operate. After providing a brief account of Latin American constitutional history in Part I, the essay will thus consider the relationship between language and constitutions in three different contexts: the creation of new constitutions, constitutional protection of language rights, and the process of making a constitution accessible to speakers of a language different from the one in which it was originally written.

Download the full text from SSRN at the link.

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Law & Humanities Blog

The History of Hysteria, In Photographs

Posted: 26 May 2011 08:02 AM PDT

NPR's Jessican Loudis takes a look at Asti Hustvedt's Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth Century Paris, a new book examining the women confined to the notorious Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, the treatment of their condition, which was dubbed "hysteria," and the effects and stories about that threatment then and now. Says Ms. Loudis in part,

Nowhere was hysteria's uneasy relationship to science more apparent than in photographs. Andre Breton once called hysteria the "greatest poetic discovery of the late 19th century," a notion that lingers below the surface of clinical observation. Like Muybridge's images of horses in motion, Charcot used photography as a mode of forensics and a means to parse illness. For the neurologist, a lifelong doodler, "art became a method to immobilize the tumultuous fits of his patients and order the savage thrashing into a sequence of static images." It's no coincidence that "Augustine," Charcot's most documented hysteric, arrived at the hospital in 1875, the same year that its first darkroom was installed. But more than a century later, these photos — many of which have the macabre look of a still from a Bela Lugosi film — are in no way native to the realm of medicine. Instead, Hustvedt uses them to highlight the historically foggy divide between science and art.

More here. The book is published by Norton.

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UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

Transcribe Bentham wins Ars Electronica award

Posted: 26 May 2011 05:30 AM PDT

We are hugely proud and excited to report that Transcribe Bentham has won an award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica. Dr Tim Causer, researcher on the project has written the following about it. On behalf of everyone at UCLDH I’d just like to say how delighted I am that the hard work, imagination [...]

Law & Humanities Blog

Anniversary of the Scopes Indictment
Bobbleheads and Bling: The Message of Tex-Mex Rapper Pedro Herrera
The Constitution of Cadiz
The Meaning of "Precedent"
The State of Nature: Whence Politics?

Anniversary of the Scopes Indictment

Posted: 25 May 2011 10:13 AM PDT

May 25, 1925, a grand jury indicted John T. Scopes for violating a Tennessee law (passed only two months before) against the teaching of evolution (the Butler Act; repealed in 1967). Clarence Darrow undertook Mr. Scopes' defense, while the prosecution enlisted William Jennings Bryan to direct its case. While the jury hearing the case ultimately convicted Scopes, Tennessee's Supreme Court overturned the conviction on the grounds that the judge, rather than the jury, had imposed the penalty.

John T. Scopes

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee dramatized the trial, somewhat disguising the principals as Henry Drummond (Darrow), Matthew Harrison Brady (Bryan), Bertram T. Cates (Scopes), and E. K. Hornbeck (H. L. Mencken, the famed journalist who covered the trial). The playwrights noted that while their work took the Scopes trial as its departure point it was also an indictment of the McCarthyism that swept the country in the early and mid-1950s. The play made its debut on Broadway in 1955 and was first filmed in 1960. It has been made for television three times, in 1965, 1988, and 1999, and is a staple for repertory companies and local theater groups.

Links:

Copy of the original New York Times story discussing Scopes indictment here
Mencken's article discussing likelihood of Scopes' conviction
Professor Doug Linder's excellent Famous Trials website with more information on the trial here

Bobbleheads and Bling: The Message of Tex-Mex Rapper Pedro Herrera

Posted: 25 May 2011 09:36 AM PDT

From the New York Times, a feature on Pedro Herrera, "Chingo Bling," who takes inspiration from Mexican foods and culture, and weaves his political concerns into the popular hip-hop that has made him a standard bearer for the Latin American experience. Among his recordings: They Can't Deport Us All (Asylum Records); Chave del Ache: The Kid from da H, El Mero Chingon, Duro en la Pintura, Chicken Flippa, Tamale Season, and Air Chingo: The Mixtape (all Oarfin Records). A link to Chingo Bling's blog here.

The Constitution of Cadiz

Posted: 25 May 2011 08:50 AM PDT

Matthew C.

Mirow, Florida International University College of Law, has published Codification and the Constitution of Cádiz in Estudios Jurídicos en Homenaje al Profesor Alejandro Guzmán Brito (Patrício-Ignacio Carajal and Massimo Miglietta, eds.; Edizioni dell'Orso, 2012).

This study seeks to explore the private law side of the Constitution of Cádiz, in particular its use and reference to the legal revolution of codification that was well underway by 1812. By engaging questions of codification and private law, this study explores the relationship between private law and public law at a transformative moment in both areas. In public law, unwritten, ancient constitutions were just beginning to be replaced by written constitutions attempting to limit government and to define individual rights. In private law, centuries of the ius commune tradition were being reorganized and shaped into codes. Thus, an examination of the idea and place of codification in the Constitution of Cádiz should reveal clues about these important changes.

First, this study discusses the placement of Article 258, the constitutional article referring to codes, within the text of the Constitution itself. It then addresses other aspects of the Constitution that point towards codification as a logical outgrowth of the political and legal transformations contemplated by the Constitution. The third topic addressed here is the way Article 258 came into the Constitution through the reports of the debates in the Cortes and what these statements reveal about the perception of codes at the Cortes. This study ends with some concluding comments about the place of the Constitution of Cádiz in the history of Latin American codification.

Download the text from SSRN at the link.

The Meaning of "Precedent"

Posted: 25 May 2011 08:43 AM PDT

Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia School of Law, is publishing Precedent in the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Law (Andrei Marmor ed., 2011?). Here is the abstract.

This article on precedent, prepared as an entry for the forthcoming Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Law (Andrei Marmor, ed.), examines the main philosophical and jurisprudential issues involved with the concept of precedent and its role in legal reasoning and legal decision-making. Among the themes covered are the fundamental idea of a past decision being a reason just because of its existence, the distinction between precedential and analogical reasoning, the issues involved in determining which past decisions are precedents for which current ones, the relation between precedent and rules, and the normative and institutional design questions of when a system of precedential constraint is desirable and when it is not.

Download the text from SSRN at the link.

The State of Nature: Whence Politics?

Posted: 25 May 2011 08:39 AM PDT

William A. Edmundson, Georgia State University College of Law, has published Politics in a State of Nature. Here is the abstract.

Aristotle thought we are, by nature, political animals. Political philosophy in the tradition of Hobbes and Locke sees political society not as natural but as an artifice. For this tradition, political society emerged from a pre-political state of nature by the exercise of innate normative powers. Those powers, together with the rest of our native normative endowment, both make possible the construction of the state, and place sharp limits on the state's just powers and prerogatives.

Thus described, a state-of-nature theory has three components. One is an account of the native normative endowment, or "NNE." Two is an account of how the state is constructed using the tools included in the NNE. Three is an account of the state's resulting normative endowment, which includes a (purported) moral power to impose duties of obedience.

State-of-nature theories disagree about the NNE. For Hobbes, it consists of a moral permission to do whatever seems to one to be necessary to survival, and a moral power to covenant. Locke specified a more constraining NNE, which also included a "natural executive right" to punish wrongdoing. Rawls excluded personal desert from the "original position," his refurbishing of the state of nature. In each case, the NNE is not treated as though it were a matter of empirical investigation and discovery, but rather were one of reflective adjustment to the other two components of the theory.

The work of social psychologist Stanley Milgram and his students suggests a quite different NNE, one far more constrained than what state-of-nature theories have allowed. Norms that constrain moral reproof are of particular interest here. Contrary to Locke, people do not behave in experimental settings as one would predict if they possessed a "natural executive right" to punish wrongdoing. Moral reproof is subject to standing norms. These norms limit the range of eligible reprovers.

This paper draws on this work to support two claims. One, is that the native normative endowment is (as Aristotle held) already political. The other is that political authority should be re-conceived as a matter of standing - that is, as the state's unique possession of a moral permission to enforce moral norms, rather than as a moral power to impose freestanding duties of obedience.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

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Medical Humanities Blog

On Polio & Its Histories

Posted: 25 May 2011 09:06 AM PDT

Daniel S.

Goldberg (East Carolina University) has a new review out on H-Net, commissioned for the History of Disability listserv and entitled Polio and Its Histories. Like all reviews on H-Net, it is available full-text open-access. Here is an excerpt:

It is difficult to find a single disease that has inspired a sheer mass of historiography comparable to that addressing polio in the United States. There are myriad reasons for this abundance: the giant shadow cast by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the tendency of many polio epidemics to concentrate among young children and adolescents, the stark visibility of polio, the post-World War Two rise of the American biomedical research enterprise and its connection to the development of a vaccine, and of course the success in virtually eliminating the disease from the American population. Heather Green Wooten situates her work in this broader literature, and this book fills a niche as the first study devoted to assessing the history of polio in Texas during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Drawing primarily on oral and archival techniques, Wooten produces a lively and well-researched account of how Texans understood and responded to polio during those decades.

However, Wooten's monograph is not disability history.

Comments and suggestions welcome, of course.

Law & Humanities Blog

The Legacy and Mystery of Primo Levi
Egalitarianism In History and Contemporary Thought
Law's Nature
What's Satire Got To Do With It?

The Legacy and Mystery of Primo Levi

Posted: 24 May 2011 10:02 AM PDT

Carlin Romano writes about Primo Levi's legacy here for the Chronicle of Higher Education. More on the meaning of Mr. Levi's art and the difficulty of writing about his work here in a 2002 Chronicle article by Julia M. Klein.

Egalitarianism In History and Contemporary Thought

Posted: 24 May 2011 08:12 AM PDT

Joel I Colon-Rios, Victoria University of Wellington, and Martin Hevia, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Law, have published From Redistribution to Recognition in El derecho a la egualidad: a portes para un constitucionalismo iqualitario (Roberto Gargarella y Marcela Alegre eds.; Lexis/Nexis, forthcoming).

This paper examines the 'second wave' of egalitarianism, which moved away from the traditional focus on economic injustices and redistribution claims, to an emphasis in cultural injustices and the politics of recognition. The first part of the paper introduces the 'first wave' of egalitarian thought, through a brief examination of the work of John Rawls and of the scholarship on luck egalitarianism. The second part, resting on the work of Charles Taylor, explores the historical roots of the politics of recognition. The third part focuses in the debate between Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser, which exemplifies the promises and limits of the second wave of egalitarian thought.

Download the abstract from SSRN at the link.

NB: Text is in Spanish.

Law's Nature

Posted: 24 May 2011 08:06 AM PDT

Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia School of Law, has published On the Nature of the Nature of Law. Here is the abstract.

What is it for something to have a nature? And what is it for law to have a nature? Analysis of the concept of law has often been taken to be a search for the essential features of law, but it is not clear that the nature of a phenomenon or artifact is better explained by its essential features than by its common ones. And it is not clear that necessary truths have more explanatory value than typical truths. Especially – but not necessarily – if we recognize the possibility that law is a cluster concept, the value of explaining the widespread but not strictly necessary features of law in explaining law itself becomes more apparent. The jurisprudential project of differentiating law from other social phenomena is an important one, but the distinction may be a fuzzy one and not susceptible either to sharp demarcation or to specification of essential features of law that will assist in differentiation. But if we inquire into what typically or usually or almost always characterizes law rather than what necessarily characterizes it, we may make genuine progress in distinguishing law from the social phenomena to which it is adjacent but with which it is not congruent. This paper, prepared for the McMaster University Conference in May, 2011, on "The Nature of Law: Contemporary Perspectives," explores these issues.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

What's Satire Got To Do With It?

Posted: 24 May 2011 08:00 AM PDT

Lauren Feldman, American University, Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale University, and Edward W. Maibach, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Commication, have published The Impact of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Public Attentiveness to Science and the Environment. Here is the abstract.

Prior research on the political effects of late-night comedy programs has demonstrated that by piggy-backing political content on entertainment fare, such programs provide a, "gateway," to increased audience attention to news and public affairs, particularly among less politically engaged audiences. Given the heightened coverage of science and environmental topics on Comedy Central's satirical news programs, "The Daily Show," and, "The Colbert Report," this paper considers whether a similar process could be at work relative to public attention to science and the environment. An analysis of nationally representative survey data finds that audience exposure to, "The Daily Show," and, "The Colbert Report," goes hand-in-hand with attention paid to science and environmental issues, specifically global warming. Moreover, the relationship between satirical news use and attentiveness is most pronounced among those with the least amount of formal education, who might otherwise lack the resources and motivation to pay attention to scientific and environmental issues. In this way, satirical news is an attention equalizer, reducing traditional gaps in attentiveness between those with low and high levels of education.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

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Law & Humanities Blog

Bob Dylan and Legal Opinions
Calll For Papers: International Conference on Law, Language, and Discourse
Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and Humanities: Call For Papers
The Role of Labor Songs In Labor Movements

Bob Dylan and Legal Opinions

Posted: 23 May 2011 08:17 AM PDT

Alex B. Long, University of Tennessee College of Law, has published The Freewheelin' Judiciary: A Bob Dylan Anthology. Here is the abstract.

This paper, presented as part of a symposium on Bob Dylan and the Law at the Fordham University School of Law, explores the ways in which judges have used the lyrics of Bob Dylan in their opinions.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link

Calll For Papers: International Conference on Law, Language, and Discourse

Posted: 23 May 2011 08:14 AM PDT

The First International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse

Multiculturalism, Diversity and Dynamicity

City University of Hong Kong with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Hong Kong, 20-21 August, 2011

The First International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse invites theoretical studies, applicational cases, and relevant work-in-progress papers on the key issues in Law, Language and Discourse. The theme of the conference "Multiculturalism, Diversity and Dynamicity" promotes research of, and welcomes participation from, researchers of different cultural and language backgrounds from different disciplines and across jurisdictions.

The LLD Conference invites papers on all aspects of law, language and discourse, including, but not limited to:

1. Legislative language

2. Courtroom language

3. Language in the proceeding of investigation (including police interrogation, cover investigation, conversation in prison, etc.)

4. Legal translation & court interpretation

5. Education and training on LLP (Language for Legal Purposes)

6. Language evidence as a system

7. Discourse analysis of legal texts

8. Legal terminology

9. Legal discourse and information retrieval

10. Language planning and Language rights

The conference will be held on 20-21 August 2011, just before the 16th World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA2011) (23-28 August 2011, Beijing) and the International Conference on Law, Translation and Culture (28-29 August 2011, Beijing).

Post-conference indexed (CPCI-SSH) proceedings will be published.

Confirmed invited speakers

Vijay Bhatia, City University of Hong Kong

Le Cheng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Winnie Cheng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Malcolm Coulthard, Aston University

Diana Eades, University of New England

Michael Halliday, University of Sydney

Craig Hoffman, Georgetown University

Kyo Kageura, The University of Tokyo

Gilbert Mo, Department of Justice of Hong Kong

Lijin Sha, China University of Political Science and Law

King Kui Sin, City University of Hong Kong

Benjamin T'sou, Hong Kong Institute of Education

Anne Wagner, Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale

Jonathan Webster, City University of Hong Kong

Weiping Wu, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Important dates

Abstract deadline: 15 June 2011 (500-800 words to LLDmall@cityu.edu.hk) [Download the abstract sample.]

Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2011

Registration

Method of payment is described here.

Before 15 July 2011: US$120.00

After 15 July 2011: US$200.00

Method of payment

Please send a bank draft via air mail payable to City University of Hong Kong to International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse C/O Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong. Please also put your name on the back of the bank draft.

Link: http://ctl.cityu.edu.hk/Portal_root/2011/lddmall/ (to be updated)

Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and Humanities: Call For Papers

Posted: 23 May 2011 08:04 AM PDT

From Diana Young, an announcement:

The Canadian Initiative in Law Culture and the Humanities is inviting proposals for its biennial conference in October. The call for papers is attached, and can also be found on line here. Any inquiries should be directed to

CILCH@carleton.ca,

Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and Humanities
Carleton University
C473 Loeb Building
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6
Canada

Dis/Locating Law

Biennial Conference of the
Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture and Humanities

Ottawa, Canada

October 20-22, 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

Dislocation is a phenomenon of space, place and time. To dislocate something is to upset, complicate, or displace it. It involves getting things out of place, out of order, and out of time, or to question if things are indeed in their 'right' place and time. Dislocating, then, can be disorienting; it can dislodge comfortable assumptions, and it can unsettle, perhaps even painfully, what has gone before. Dislocation invites different perspectives, produces new cartographies, disrupts teleologies. This conference will feature papers and presentations which unsettle the place of law in relation to political, ethical, social, cultural or symbolic orders.

The Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture and Humanities (CILCH) invites you to participate in its 2011 conference on the theme of dis/locating law. The conference is interdisciplinary, drawing together scholars whose research addresses the intersections among culture, the humanities and law, including but not limited to studies of law and literature, law and film/television, cultural practices of regulation, mediation and law, intersections of cultural theory and the legal, alternative visions of legally coded practices, and so on.

This year's theme is intentionally broad in order to provide an open-ended focus for exploration. The conference is hosted with the goals of stimulating conversations among diverse scholars with shared interests, of continuing to foster the growing community of law, culture and humanities scholars in Canada, and of contributing to a global network of scholarship in these areas.

If you are interested in giving a paper, hosting a roundtable, or offering another form of presentation (either almost finished works or works in progress), please submit a proposal to CILCH @carleton.ca, as follows:

- title of proposed paper/presentation

- 200 word biography of presenter(s)

- contact information for presenter(s)

- an abstract outlining the paper/presentation of a maximum of 300 words

- detail on any technical requirements (data projector, sound system, etc.)

We very much look forward to receiving your proposal and to yet another productive and thought-provoking CILCH gathering.

The deadline for submission is June 15, 2011.

The Role of Labor Songs In Labor Movements

Posted: 23 May 2011 08:02 AM PDT

Raymond A. Franklin has published The Contemporary Roles of Labor Songs in the St. John's Legal Studies Research Paper series. Here is the abstract.

Music has played a critical role for workers throughout the history of the labor movement. Music gives an opportunity to rebel. It gives an opportunity to argue policy. It gives an opportunity to be heard. Songs written in protest, or in furtherance of a cause, give a sense of historical and political climate of a particular era. This article, "The Contemporary Roles of Labor Songs" draws attention to three especially important periods in the shaping of labor history, the 1930s, 1960s and 1980s, highlighting the representative impact a particular song - "Which Side Are You On?," "Salt of the Earth," and "There is Power in a Union" - had in each of these decades.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

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