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| The Portrayal of Crime in Hindu Films Posted: 25 Mar 2013 08:17 AM PDT Karthik Suresh, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) University, has published 'Apaharan' and the Making of a Criminal - Portrayal of Crime by Popular Hindi Cinema. Here is the abstract. Apaharan, released in 2005, is a movie based on the kidnapping 'industry' that operates in Bihar even today. In this movie, the well-known actor Ajay Devgn plays a young, out-of-work salesman, who applies for a post in the State Police. He clears the merit list, but is asked to pay a bribe of 5 lakh rupees. Just before his selection, major differences crop up between Home Minister Dinkar Pandey and Ajay's father, with the latter threatening to expose the corruption within the State Ministry. Dinkar ensures that Ajay's name is dropped from the shortlist, and the money-lender sends his goons after him, giving him 3 days to come up with the money. A desperate Ajay decides to be part of the lucrative kidnapping scheme in Bihar, abducts a Government official and demands a ransom so that he can re-pay his loan. The story then goes on to show Ajay's rise in the kidnapping industry, reaching his zenith as the kingpin of the industry. His eventual downfall is shown, as differences crop up later in the story with his mentor Tabrez Alam (played by Nana Patekar). What I am to focus on, in this paper, is the construction of crime which leads to Ajay Devgan becoming wanted for cases of kidnapping, extortion and murder. What is described as 'making of a criminal', and the criminology-related aspect of the commission of the crime, is to be discussed in this paper. This, shall be spoken about in the light of popular Hindi cinema which have represented crime and criminals in various shades. The researcher is to use various models of criminology, including Engels' model of construction of crime, as also other criminological discourses about how a 'criminal mind' takes shape. This is to be connected to Apaharan in particular, but research would also be done into other Hindi movies, Vaastav, Deewar (Amitabh Bacchan's role in that movie) etc. A society's perception of crime and the making of a criminal could be well-understood by the cinema it produces. Hindi cinema, being the lingua franca of this country, could well give an opportunity to look into Indian society's perception of how a criminal is made. |
Through Apaharan, the researcher aims to gauge the idea of crime and the 'making of a criminal' in the Hindi film industry.Download the paper from SSRN at the link. 
The Spanish Legal Influence In West Florida
Posted: 25 Mar 2013 08:12 AM PDT
Sean Patrick Donlan, University of Limerick, is publishing Entangled Up in Red, White, and Blue: Spanish West Florida and the American Territory of Orleans, 1803-1810, in Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approches To Legal History, I Global Perspective on Legal History -- (Thomas Duve ed.; Max Planck Institute for European Legal History 2013). Forthcoming.
Download the essay from SSRN at the link.This article is a preliminary case study of legal and normative entanglement in Spanish West Florida — which stretched across the Gulf Coast of present-day Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida — between 1803-1810. Between the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the annexation of Westernmost part of West Florida by the United States (1810), the laws and norms of the Territory criss-crossed in various ways those of Spain and the United States. Indeed, the territory was, in turn, French, British, and Spanish before being annexed, in part, by the Americans. For the period under study here, and decades before, its settlers were largely Anglophone, while its laws were a variant of the Spanish colonial ius commune. West Florida had an especially close relationship with the area that would become the new American Territory of Orleans (1805), especially the city of New Orleans. Carved out of the vast Louisiana Territory purchased from France, the Territory of Orleans had its own complex history. Its population was still largely Francophone. In its first decade, its laws were already a gumbo of continental and Anglo-American ingredients. Together, the two territories sat at the precipice of the modern nation-state, of nationalism and popular sovereignty, of legal positivism and legal formalism. In both territories, the diffusion — direct and indirect, formal and informal, ongoing and sporadic — of the various laws and norms of natives and newcomers created intricate legal and normative hybrids.
Posted: 25 Mar 2013 08:06 AM PDT
Beth Burkstrand-Reid, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, College of Law, has published Dirty Harry Meets Dirty Diapers: Masculinities, At-Home Fathers, and Making the Law Work for Families, in volume 22 of the Texas Journal of Women and the Law (2012). Here is the abstract.
Who is the 'man'? Implicit in this question is whether the man at issue demonstrates traits traditionally associated with masculinity: traits such as power, rejecting all things associated with being female, aggression, and being the family breadwinner. If a man, then, abandons paid work and stays at home full time with his children, is he still a 'man' as typically defined? The answer to this question bears both on whether families are truly evolving away from the traditional, gendered construct that places men as family breadwinners and women as caregivers and whether work-family balance law meets the needs of these - and all - families.Download the article from SSRN at the link.
This article analyzes 425 media stories about at-home fathers written over an eight-year period. Specifically, it looks at whether these fathers accept or reject socially constructed notions of masculinity. The results suggest that some at-home fathers adapt their behavior in ways that allow them to function as primary caregivers while keeping their masculinity intact. As masculinity appears to be salient even to gender-subversive fathers, understanding these adaptive strategies is important to making work-family balance law more responsive to all fathers.
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