Law, Literature and the Power of Reading

Law, Literature and the Power of Reading PDF Author: Suneel Mehmi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000428621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
At the intersection of law, literature and history, this book interrogates how a dominant contemporary idea of law emerged out of specific ideas of reading in the nineteenth century. Reading shapes our identities. How we read shapes who we are. Reading also shapes our conceptions of what the law is, because the law is also a practice of reading. Focusing on the works of key Victorian writers closely associated with legal practice, this book addresses the way in which the identity of the reader of law has been modelled on the identity of the political elite. At the same time, it shows how other readers of law have been marginalised. The book thus shows how a construction of the law has emerged from the ordering of a power that discriminates between different readers and readings. More specifically, and in response to the emerging media of photography – and, with it, potentially subversive ideas of exposure and visibility – the book shows that there have been dominant, hidden and unrecognised guides to legal reading and to legal thought. And in making these visible, the book also aims to make them contestable. This secret history of law will appeal to legal historians, legal theorists, those working at the intersection of law and literature and others with interests in law and the visual.

Law, Literature and the Power of Reading

Law, Literature and the Power of Reading PDF Author: Suneel Mehmi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000428621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
At the intersection of law, literature and history, this book interrogates how a dominant contemporary idea of law emerged out of specific ideas of reading in the nineteenth century. Reading shapes our identities. How we read shapes who we are. Reading also shapes our conceptions of what the law is, because the law is also a practice of reading. Focusing on the works of key Victorian writers closely associated with legal practice, this book addresses the way in which the identity of the reader of law has been modelled on the identity of the political elite. At the same time, it shows how other readers of law have been marginalised. The book thus shows how a construction of the law has emerged from the ordering of a power that discriminates between different readers and readings. More specifically, and in response to the emerging media of photography – and, with it, potentially subversive ideas of exposure and visibility – the book shows that there have been dominant, hidden and unrecognised guides to legal reading and to legal thought. And in making these visible, the book also aims to make them contestable. This secret history of law will appeal to legal historians, legal theorists, those working at the intersection of law and literature and others with interests in law and the visual.

Law and Literature

Law and Literature PDF Author: Lenora Ledwon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317954181
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
First published in 1996. The first anthology of its kind in this dynamic new field of study, this volume offers students the best of both worlds-theory and literature. Organized around specific themes to facilitate use of the text in a variety of courses, the material is highly accessible to undergraduates and is suitable as well for graduate students and law students. The anthology includes important articles by key figures in the law and literature debate, and presents seven thematically arranged sections that: Survey the various theoretical perspectives that inform the relationship of law and literature Examine the interplay of ethics, law, and justice * Highlight the great scope and variety of the law's contributions to the creation of a world view * Illustrate various legal approaches to punishment * Detail and analyze the law's inherent capacity for the oppression of individuals and groups * Demonstrate that law is grounded in language and storytelling * Show that despite its solemnity, the law has a comic side Each section includes excerpts from poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. The excerpts include writings addressing the law's impact on the "outsider" (women, Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, and homosexuals), as well as writings by lawyers, judges, and law professors, giving the reader an "insider's" view of the legal system. The selections range from Plato to John Barth and Wallace Stevens. At this time of increased interest in the quality of legal writing, this course material illustrates the importance of language, word choice, metaphor, and narrative. It demonstrates the practical application of literary effects, techniques, and devices, and provides valuable insights into law as a vital component of the social fabric. SPECIAL FEATURES All law schools that do not already have one in place are required to institute a course in Law and Literature. This new anthology is the first of its kind, and has been specifically designed to meet the requirements of a Law and Literature course * Selections from judges, lawyers, and professors of law give students an insider's view of the legal system * Chronological coverage-from Plato to such 20th-century writers as John Barth and Wallace Stevens-offers students a broad range of selections that examine the relationship between law, justice, ethics, and literature * Multicultural writings address the law's capacity for the oppression of individuals and groups, including women, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and homosexuals * Law and punishment-several selections examine this area from various points of view. Suitable for courses in: Law and literature courses in law schools and undergraduate divisions as well as interdisciplinary courses in English literature.

Reading for the Law

Reading for the Law PDF Author: Christine L. Krueger
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813928974
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Taking her title from the British term for legal study, "to read for the law," Christine L. Krueger asks how "reading for the law" as literary history contributes to the progressive educational purposes of the Law and Literature movement. She argues that a multidisciplinary "historical narrative jurisprudence" strengthens narrative legal theorists' claims for the transformative powers of stories by replacing an ahistorical opposition between literature and law with a history of their interdependence, and their embeddedness in print culture. Focusing on gender and feminist advocacy in the long nineteenth century, Reading for the Law demonstrates the relevance of literary history to feminist jurisprudence and suggests how literary history might contribute to other forms of "outsider jurisprudence." Krueger develops this argument across discussions of key jurisprudential concepts: precedent, agency, testimony, and motive. She draws from a wide range of literary, legal, and historical sources, from the early modern period through the Victorian age, as well as from contemporary literary, feminist, and legal theory. Topics considered include the legacy of witchcraft prosecutions, the evolution of the Reasonable Man standard of evidence in lunacy inquiries, the fate of female witnesses and pro se litigants, advocacy for female prisoners and infanticide defendants, and defense strategies for men accused of indecent assault and sodomy. The saliency of the nineteenth-century British literary culture stems in part from its place in a politico-legal tradition that produces the very conditions of narrative legal theorists’ aspirations for meaningful social transformation in modern, multicultural democracies.

Interpreting Law and Literature

Interpreting Law and Literature PDF Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 9780810107939
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
From the Preface: "Contemporary theory has usefully analyzed how alternative modes of interpretation produce different meanings, how reading itself is constituted by the variable perspectives of readers, and how these perspectives are in turn defined by prejudices, ideologies, interests, and so forth. Some theorists gave argued persuasively that textual meaning, in literature and in literary interpretation, is structured by repression and forgetting, by what the literary or critical text does not say as much as by what it does. All these claims are directly relevant to legal hermeneutics, and thus it is no surprise that legal theorists have recently been turning to literary theory for potential insight into the interpretation of law. This collection of essays is designed to represent the especially rich interactive that has taken place between legal and literary hermeneutics during the past ten years."

Testimony and Advocacy in Victorian Law, Literature, and Theology

Testimony and Advocacy in Victorian Law, Literature, and Theology PDF Author: Jan-Melissa Schramm
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521771234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The eighteenth-century model of the criminal trial - with its insistence that the defendant and the facts of a case could 'speak for themselves' - was abandoned in 1836, when legislation enabled barristers to address the jury on behalf of prisoners charged with felony. Increasingly, professional acts of interpretation were seen as necessary to achieve a just verdict, thereby silencing the prisoner and affecting the testimony given by eye witnesses at criminal trials. Jan-Melissa Schramm examines the profound impact of the changing nature of evidence in law and theology on literary narrative in the nineteenth century. Already a locus of theological conflict, the idea of testimony became a fiercely contested motif of Victorian debate about the ethics of literary and legal representation. She argues that authors of fiction created a style of literary advocacy which both imitated, and reacted against, the example of their storytelling counterparts at the Bar.

The Handbook of Law and Society

The Handbook of Law and Society PDF Author: Austin Sarat
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118701372
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Bringing a timely synthesis to the field, The Handbook of Law and Society presents a comprehensive overview of key research findings, theoretical developments, and methodological controversies in the field of law and society. Provides illuminating insights into societal issues that pose ongoing real-world legal problems Offers accessible, succinct overviews with in-depth coverage of each topic, including its evolution, current state, and directions for future research Addresses a wide range of emergent topics in law and society and revisits perennial questions about law in a global world including the widening gap between codified laws and “law in action”, problems in the implementation of legal decisions, law’s constitutive role in shaping society, the importance of law in everyday life, ways legal institutions both embrace and resist change, the impact of new media and technologies on law, intersections of law and identity, law’s relationship to social consensus and conflict, and many more Features contributions from 38 international expert scholars working in diverse fields at the intersections of legal studies and social sciences Unique in its contributions to this rapidly expanding and important new multi-disciplinary field of study

Reading the Family Dance

Reading the Family Dance PDF Author: John V. Knapp
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874138238
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The development in recent years of the intersections between the family and literary study continues to emerge as one of the most productive and illuminating arenas of contemporary critique. In addition to addressing the family dynamic through which a given literary character develops a fully realized sense of self, family systems therapy allows readers to examine the patterns by which characters function in their larger intimate systems, whether those systems be social, institutional, or even global. As the intellectual foundation for the forms of therapy practiced by the majority of contemporary American and European psychotherapists, the study of family systems theory and its intersections with literary works affords readers with an illuminating glimpse into the terminology and processes involved in this dynamic form of critique. Perhaps most significantly, family systems therapy allows critics to consider the distinctly social interactions that characterise our pathways to interpersonal development and selfhood. John V. Knapp is Professor of English, with a joint appointment in modern literature and in teacher education, at Northern Illinois University. Kenneth Womack is Assist

Law and Love in Ovid

Law and Love in Ovid PDF Author: Ioannis Ziogas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192583786
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
In classical scholarship, the presence of legal language in love poetry is commonly interpreted as absurd and incongruous. Ovid's legalisms have been described as frivolous, humorous, and ornamental. Law and Love in Ovid challenges this wide-spread, but ill-informed view. Legal discourse in Latin love poetry is not incidental, but fundamental. Inspired by recent work in the interdisciplinary field of law and literature, Ioannis Ziogas argues that the Roman elegiac poets point to love as the site of law's emergence. The Latin elegiac poets may say 'make love, not law', but in order to make love, they have to make law. Drawing on Agamben, Foucault, and Butler, Law and Love in Ovid explores the juridico-discursive nature of Ovid's love poetry, constructions of sovereignty, imperialism, authority, biopolitics, and the ways in which poetic diction has the force of law. The book is methodologically ambitious, combining legal theory with historically informed closed readings of numerous primary sources. Ziogas aims to restore Ovid to his rightful position in the history of legal humanism. The Roman poet draws on a long tradition that goes back to Hesiod and Solon, in which poetic justice is pitted against corrupt rulers. Ovid's amatory jurisprudence is examined vis-à-vis Paul's letter to the Romans. The juridical nature of Ovid's poetry lies at the heart of his reception in the Middle Ages, from Boccaccio's Decameron to Forcadel's Cupido iurisperitus. The current trend to simultaneously study and marginalize legal discourse in Ovid is a modern construction that Law and Love in Ovid aims to demolish.

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description


The National Literary Monthly

The National Literary Monthly PDF Author: J. Russell Fisher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description