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The Philosophy of Law of Alain Badiou
Women and Their Work In Early Twentieth Century U.S. Criminal Courts
The Political Career of Franz Boas

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 11:20 AM PDT

Igor Stramignoni, London School of Economics, Law Department, has published Seizing Truths: Art, Politics, Law at Art and Law 73 (O. Ben-Dor, ed. Routledge, 2011). Here is the abstract.

The work of French philosopher Alain Badiou has been described as the most powerful alternative yet conceived in France to the various forms of postmodernism that arose after the collapse of the Marxist project. Art interests Badiou in its own right but also as both that which, in the twentieth century, eclipsed philosophy and as that which today philosophy, increasingly de-sutured from art, must imitate in order to make clear that there are truths after all. Badiou conceives of law, on the other hand, as part and parcel of a specific political machine that must continuously perform certain problematic exclusions if it is to keep the fiction of parliamentary democracy together. So how is the relationship between art and law, between the poet and the city, in Badiou's oeuvre?

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

A shorter version of this essay was presented to the symposium on 'Law and Art: Ethics, Aesthetics and Justice', held at Tate Modern London in March 2010, and it was published in LSE Law, Society and Economy Working Papers 14/2010.

Women and Their Work In Early Twentieth Century U.S. Criminal Courts

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 11:16 AM PDT

Mae C. Quinn, Washington University, St. Louis, School of Law, has published 'Feminizing' Courts: Lay Volunteers and the Integration of Social Work in Progressive Reform, in Feminist Legal History: Essays on Women and Law, (Tracy A. Thomas & T. J. Boisseau eds.; NYU Press, 2011). Here is the abstract.

This essay, appearing as a chapter in FEMINIST LEGAL HISTORY: ESSAYS ON WOMEN (N.Y.U. PRESS 2011), uncovers groundbreaking court innovations employed by Judge Anna Moscowitz Kross. To date, Kross's work has gone largely unexamined by legal historians and court reformers. This essay describes how Kross, one of the nation's first women judges, sought to rethink the role and goals of criminal courts in order to meet and address social realities. Beginning in the 1930's she expanded the boundaries of criminal courts to permit female volunteer caseworkers and lay probation officers, as representatives of the larger community, to play a role in court operations. Her lay volunteer armies, which were seen as controversial and at times came under official scrutiny, continued their efforts over the course of several decades. What is more, many courts across the country replicated Kross's experiment without crediting her for her ideas. While this essay celebrates this largely forgotten historical figure and her work as an early judicial innovator, it also warns that social engineering efforts in criminal courts at the hands of lay counselors, both then and now, raise important questions that are worthy of further exploration. This essay, therefore, concludes by suggesting that today's criminal justice reformers might learn important lessons from Kross's attempts at judicial creativity that relied on private funding and private citizen participation in criminal court proceedings.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

The Political Career of Franz Boas

Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:25 AM PDT

Alan H. McGowan, The New School for Liberal Arts, Eugene Lang College, has published Franz Boas and the Progressive Spirit, in Jewish Currents, Autumn 2010. Here is the abstract.

This article examines the political career of Franz Boas, called the Father of American Anthropology. In addition to being a pioneering anthropologist, Boas realized the impact that scientists could have on public policy. In addition to commenting on issues concerning race, he organized committees to defend free speech in educational institutions and elsewhere.

Download the text from SSRN at the link.

Via First Amendment Law Prof Blog.