Law & Humanities Blog

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• Pedro Almodovar's "High Heels"
• François Hollande On the Holocaust
• The Origins of Coke's Common Law Thinking
• The Origins of Slavery In Early Virginia
• Literature and Intergenerational Justice

Pedro Almodovar's "High Heels" Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:11 PM PDT Monica Lopez Lerma, University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, has published Law in High Heels: Performativity, Alterity, and Aesthetics, at 20 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 2 (2011). Here is the abstract. Pedro Almodovar's High Heels (the original Spanish title, Tacones Lejanos, literally means 'distant heels') is a 1991 postmodern film that celebrates performance, fluidity, and fragmentation as ways of being in and understanding the world. In a generic combination of melodrama, comedy, musical, and film noir, High Heels tells the story of a turbulent mother daughter relationship, and a judge's criminal investigation following the murder of the daughter's husband (who also happens to be the mother's former lover). In recent years, Almodovar's film has received the attention of Orit Kamir, a law-and-film feminist scholar who opens up a refreshing line of inquiry. Kamir uses the film as a powerful site and as a means to explore alternative feminist images of law, judgment, and justice. In this Article, I provide new insights into Kamir's feminist jurisprudential reading of the film by placing it within the framework of postmodern jurisprudence, performativity, and queer aesthetics. My aim is to reconceptualize law through an ethics of alterity, and to further theoretical developments in postmodern accounts of judgment, ethics, and justice. Download the article from SSRN at the link.

François Hollande On the Holocaust Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:07 PM PDT From Richard Weisberg The following Israeli editorial aptly summarizes both the excellent recent statement about Vichy by France's new President and some of the debate that, predictably, has followed. The clarity of Pres. Hollande's statement reiterates, at some distance, the findings of scholars such as myself, about France's responsibility for the wrongdoing against Jews. The Commission in Paris that now administers individual restitution for Vichy's victims has also been mentioned in news stories, eg the NYT on 7/16. I have been over-seeing that Commission's work for over a decade.It is much to France's credit that they are, in different ways and after many decades of self-congratulatory denial, coming to grips with this sad history.However, there are voices of revisionism, some from surprising quarters.I look forward to hearing from you if you have views on these developments.Regards, Richard Weisberg  Subject: today editorial, 7/31 "Haaretz"  Whose crime is it? Schoolteachers have long complained about the difficulties of teaching this chapter in French history. 'The Holocaust is not the history of the Jewish people; it is history, our history,' said Hollande. Adar Primor | Jul.31, 2012 "The truth is that the crime was committed in France, by France." One sentence, a few simple, clear words, but how loaded. And how, it turns out, controversial. Still. President Francois Hollande, under 100 days in the Elysees and has already notched up one of the most historic, powerful, and resonant speeches ever heard in the French Fifth Republic. That sentence became the focus of the speech he gave last week at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv roundup. It was the largest Aktion carried out on French soil. In July 1942, more than 13,000 Jews from Paris and its environs were arrested. The Jews were concentrated in the Winter Velodrome and from there, most were sent to their annihilation in Auschwitz. "The crime was committed in France"? Clearly. "By France"? Absolutely not. So it was claimed, once again, following Hollande's speech. For decades the French looked in the mirror and saw reflected in it a nation of a great revolution, a nation of enlightenment and human rights, a land of refuge and emancipation. When they skipped forward, historically, to World War II, the reflection in the mirror was that of General Charles de Gaulle and Free France, of the Resistance and Righteous Gentiles. For decades the history of France was blurred, concealed, or even denied, until it was forgotten. But in 1995 President Jacques Chirac decided to shatter the deceitful mirror and put an end to the amnesia. He accepted responsibility for the crimes of the Vichy regime, which collaborated with the Nazis. He did it in France's name. Chirac sought "to kill" the old myth. Hollande, 17 years later, came to verify the kill: France is a country of "anonymous heroes," who are responsible for saving 75 percent of France's Jews, Hollande noted, justly. But France, he added, also initiated the Vel d'Hiv hunt, organized it, and sent its citizens to their deaths. One cannot, therefore, accept any longer the claim which holds that the Vichy government was nothing but an executive branch of the Nazis that was imposed on France. The horrific crimes were perpetrated by French individuals, in the name of the French people and France. This collective must take responsibility. Again and again Hollande repeated in his speech the words that in his view comprise historic justice: "truth"(which there is an obligation to state ), "oblivion" (which he vowed to combat ), and "memory" (which he undertook to nurture ). His words take on special meaning in view of a new poll that has found that 42 percent of the French (and 60 percent of young people ) are unaware of the Vel d'Hiv raid. Schoolteachers have long complained about the difficulties of teaching this chapter in French history. Hollande addressed them in his speech: "The Holocaust is not the history of the Jewish people; it is history, our history.

Law & Humanities Blog

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• I Vant To Drink Your Ink
• Language and Property In Sarah Fielding's "David Simple"
• Teaching Techniques
• Violence In the Dark

I Vant To Drink Your Ink Posted: 27 Jul 2012 06:02 PM PDT Plagiarism Today explains how we have copyright law to thank for our familiarity with the conventions of vampire lore. More here. Thanks to Gordon Firemark for the tip.

Language and Property In Sarah Fielding's "David Simple" Posted: 27 Jul 2012 12:20 PM PDT Simon Stern, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, has published Speech and Property in David Simple at 79 ELH: English Literary History 623 (Fall 2012).

Law & Humanities Blog

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Legal Intellectuals and Their Impact On Society Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:38 PM PDT James R. Hackney, Jr., Northeastern University School of Law, has published Legal Intellectuals in Conversation: Reflections on the Construction of Contemporary American Legal Theory (New York University Press, 2012). Here is the abstract. In this book the author examines the trajectory of American legal theory in the late 20th century by way of interviewing ten leading theorists. The interviews conducted with Bruce Ackerman, Jules Coleman, Drucilla Cornell, Charles Fried, Morton Horwitz, Duncan Kennedy, Catharine MacKinnon, Richard Posner, Austin Sarat, and Patricia Williams cover a wide breadth of contemporary legal theory — including law and economics, critical legal studies, rights theory, law and philosophy, critical race theory, critical legal history, feminist theory, postmodern theory, and law and society.

Law & Humanities Blog

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• New Issue of Nineteenth Century Gender Studies Devoted To Law and Gender
• Evidentiary Rules and "The Crucible"
• Women's Citizenship and Marriage In the Nineteenth Century
• Reality Show Judging On TV

New Issue of Nineteenth Century Gender Studies Devoted To Law and Gender Posted: 24 Jul 2012 03:44 PM PDT The new issue of the journal Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies (Summer 2012) centers on law and gender. It includes many interesting articles and book reviews, including Christine L. Krueger's "The Queer Heroism of a Man of Law in "A Tale of Two Cities" and Catherine Siemann's "Appellate Lawyers in Petticoats: Access to Justice in Wilkie Collins's "The Law and the Lady." Thanks to Simon Stern of the University of Toronto School of Law and Department of English for alerting me to this very interesting issue.

Evidentiary Rules and "The Crucible" Posted: 24 Jul 2012 09:57 AM PDT Martin H. Pritikin, Whittier Law School, is publishing Can Law and Literature Be Practical? The Crucible and the Federal Rules of Evidence in the West Virginia Law Review. Here is the abstract. Counter-intuitively, one of the best ways to learn the practice-oriented topic of evidence may be by studying a work of fiction — specifically, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which dramatizes the 17th century Salem witch trials. The play puts the reader in the position of legal advocate, and invites strategic analysis of evidentiary issues.

Law & Humanities Blog

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• Calling Perry Mason
• What I Really Want To Do Is Write
• The Second Amendment and European Human Rights
• Who Read Wollstonecraft?

Calling Perry Mason Posted: 23 Jul 2012 07:29 PM PDT Do you like Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason novels? If so, and you've had a hard time finding them (many are out of print), then you may be happy to know the publisher is releasing a number in digital format at reasonable prices (under $6) for the Kindle. Titles include The Case of the Perjured Parrot, The Case of the Horrified Heirs, The Case of the Fabulous Fake, and the Case of the Fiery Fingers. I do love those alliterative titles.

What I Really Want To Do Is Write Posted: 23 Jul 2012 03:28 PM PDT The Journal of Legal Education has announced the Top Ten Winners in its first Legal Fiction Contest. They are: Steven Semeraro, Peter Brennan, Gerald T. Hendrickson, Leslie Gielow Jacobs, Kyle Mallinak, Melissa F. Miller, Patrick C. O'Reilly, Risa Peris, John Power, and Marc Weitz. More here.

Law & Humanities Blog

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A High Profile Crime In Early Twentieth Century Nevada Posted: 20 Jul 2012 11:12 AM PDT Carolyn B. Ramsey, University of Colorado Law School, has published A Diva Defends Herself: Gender and Domestic Violence in an Early Twentieth-Century Headline Trial, at 55 St. Louis University Law Journal 1347 (2011). Here is the abstract. This short article was presented as part of a symposium on headline criminal trials, organized by St. Louis University School of Law in honor of Lawrence Friedman. It describes and analyzes the self-defense acquittal of opera singer Mae Talbot in Nevada in 1910 on charges of murdering her abusive husband. Based on extensive research into archival trial records and newspaper reports, the article discusses how the press, the court, and trial lawyers on both sides depicted the killing and Mae's possible defenses. Without discounting the sensationalism and entertainment value, to a scandal-hungry public, of stories about violent marriages, I contend that press coverage of Mae Talbot's trial and others like it served an important social function. It helped to make intimate-partner violence a public issue and to define men's brutality toward their wives as improper and unmanly. However, the newspapers did not always get the story right. Despite reporters' speculation that Mae would plead insanity, her defense team centered its case on the alternative theories of justifiable homicide and accident. The jury instructions given in the case and filed with the Washoe County Court tell an even more interesting story of a judge who supplemented black-letter self-defense law with commentary on gender roles and the decline of men's right to beat their wives.