23 January 2014

CONFERENCE: "Law and the Visual- Transitions and Transformations"

CONFERENCE:  "Law and the Visual- Transitions and Transformations"

 
 

The Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University has announced a conference:  Law and the Visual - Transitions and Transformations | Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University | July 7-8 2014.
The Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University is one of the world’s oldest and best-known research centres in interdisciplinary humanities. As part of its 2014 Annual Theme, Now Showing: Cultures, Judgements, and Research on the Digital Screen, we are calling for papers on themes of visual representations of law in history and the contemporary world, focusing in particular on moments of transition and transformation.
Over the long journey of modernity, technologies of law and technologies of the visual have been marked by their volatility and inventiveness. On the one hand, changing technologies of law – the emergence of the text, the development of legislation, the might of sovereignty, structures of colonialism, mechanisms of human rights, new modes of regulation, governance, and discipline – have continually transformed our understanding of and relationship to legality. On the other hand, changing technologies of visual representation – the development of perspective, the triumph of printing, photography, film, and video games to name a few – have equally transformed our understanding of and relationship to images. In what ways can each shed light on the other?

*  How have technologies of visual representation reflected, illuminated, and constituted ideologies of law and legality – particularly at moments of significant transition or transformation? 

*  In what way do visual representations of law throughout the pre-modern, modern and contemporary periods illuminate and challenge our understanding of the changing relationship between law, aesthetics, and power?

*  In what ways do contemporary media allow new opportunities for a cross-cultural conversation around key legal issues and conflicts?

*  How does the aesthetics and technology of the digital screen transform the representation of legal concepts such as the rule of law, sovereignty, justice, or human rights? 

Only a limited number of papers can be accepted for this symposium. It provides a rare opportunity to join an outstanding cast of international scholars in legal history, legal theory, and legal aesthetics to discuss and present exciting new work on the intersection of law and the visual.

Negotiations are currently underway with possible partners for the publication of selected papers. Confirmed participants include—

Alison Young (University of Melbourne), criminologist; author of Judging the Image (2005), and Street Art, Public City (2014)
Peter Goodrich (Cardozo School of Law), legal historian; author of Oedipus Lex (1996), and Legal Emblems (2013)
Richard Sherwin (New York Law School), director of the Visual Persuasion Project; author of Visualizing Law (2011)
Desmond Manderson (Australian National University), founding director, Institute for the Public Life of Art and Ideas; author of Kangaroo Courts & the Rule of Law (2011)

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be directed to the Convenor.

Please include a 75 word bio note, institutional affiliation, and contact details, and put TRANSITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS in the subject line.  Closing date for submissions is 31 March.  On-line registration will be available from the end of April. 

Professor Desmond Manderson, Convenor <desmond.manderson@anu.edu.au>

 Humanities Research Centre, ANU


 

MEETING: Canadian Law and Society Association

MEETING:  Canadian Law and Society Association, Annual Meeting 2014


http://www.acds-clsa.org/?q=in-the-news/CLSA MeetingsCanadian Law and Society Association  Annual Meeting 2014, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, June 6-8, 2014

Law’s Encounters: Co-existing and Contradictory Norms and Systems
Law is dynamic. Over the course of time, law changes within and across societies. These changes are influenced by the course that society takes and in turn, society changes based on the dictates of law. In the process of societal interactions, law becomes expressed in multiple forms. Some of these forms are complementary, others are contradictory. The focus of the Canadian Law and Society’s Annual Meeting in 2014 is law’s multiple encounters in navigating interactions in society. It involves an exploration of co-existing legal and socio-legal norms as well as the contradictions inherent in some of these encounters. We are interested in papers, panels and other groups that explore law’s encounters at the margins as well as the center.

Our broad theme explores several areas of socio-legal thought and scholarship including:

-          Disciplinary allegiances in socio-legal scholarship
-          Indigenous laws and traditions and other legal systems
-          Interactions between social norms, statute and other forms of legal expression
-          International law/norms and domestic law
-          Historical foundations of law’s multi-faceted encounters
-          New and emerging socio-legal encounters
-          Law’s encounters with gender, disability, race, health, age, criminalization etc.
-          Crises – war, terrorism, financial crises and others – and spontaneous development of laws in light of pre-existing norms
-          Law’s encounters with difference

We invite proposals in these areas and others that explore the broad theme of the co-existences and contradictions inherent in law’s encounters with peoples, communities and broader society. Proposals may include but are not limited to
-          Papers
-          Panels
-          Graduate student workshops
-          Roundtables
-          Research workshops
-          Author meets readers sessions

We also invite expressions of interest for chairing panels.

Please e-mail proposals of between 250 words to 300 words, including 2-4 keywords, institutional affiliation and contact details to Maura Matesic at 
mmatesic@yorku.ca by January 31st, 2014. We will acknowledge receipt of your proposal.

The Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) is holding its 2014 Annual Meeting in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (CALT). There will also be a joint graduate student workshop and lunch, and a joint CLSA/CALT dinner on June 7.

 

 

22 January 2014

CONFERENCE: Law in Asia - Balancing Tradition and Modernization




WORKING PAPER: Indigenous People’s Experience of Multiple Legal Problems and Multiple Disadvantage


BLOG: French Law – Global Legal Collection Highlights


ARTICLE: Looking at Postcolonial Law and Literature


NOTE: New Nepal Assembly Convenes to Write Constitution


HUMOUR: Peer Review in Six Words (#SixWordPeerReview)

[LINK ADDED - SPD]


Readers should have a look at 'Why we liked #SixWordPeerReview' which discusses a recent Twitter 'meme[] ... parodying peer review in six words'.



JOURNAL: Journal of Comparative Law (UK)

I was pleased to note just the other day that the Journal of Comparative Law (UK) is now available on Heinonline. 

The journal and its companion book series--JCL Studies in Comparative Law--are important resources for comparatists. Both volumes 6 (2011) and 3 (2008) drew from events of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists and hosted special sections on mixed legal systems. And there's much more.

But the journal's often proven elusive. Here's hoping that publication on Heinonline will bring the journal and its authors--yes, including me--more attention. A revised, if not yet entirely up-to-date website, is a promising sign.


21 January 2014

BOOK PRIZE: APLA Book Prize Announcement

BOOK PRIZE:  APLA Book Prize Announcement

 
 The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology is pleased to launch a new book prize for the book that best exemplifies the ethnographic exploration of politics, law, and/or their interstices. The first APLA book prize will be awarded at the American Anthropological Association meeting in 2014 and annually thereafter. It carries an award of $1,000. The winning book will be reviewed in PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review and may be featured at a roundtable or author-meets-readers session at the AAA meeting. An honorable mention may be identified by the committee, if appropriate.
 ELIGIBILITY:
To be eligible for consideration, a book must examine law and/or politics ethnographically, and must have been published in English. For the 2014 prize only, a book may have been published between 2011-2013; thereafter, the book must have been published during the year prior to the competition.  Either single- or multi-authored books are eligible, however edited volumes, reference works, or second editions of previously published works are excluded from consideration.  Books translated into English from another language are eligible for consideration.  In such cases, the year that the translation was published is considered the year of publication for purposes of eligibility.
NOMINATION PROCESS:
Books may be nominated by the author(s), the press, or an APLA member. Nominations must be accompanied by a nominating letter. Send the nominating letter and a copy of the nominated book no later than May 1, 2014 directly to each of the APLA book prize committee members: Bill Maurer, School of Social Sciences, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-500; Susan Hirsch, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 3351 N. Fairfax Dr. MSN 4D3, Arlington, VA 22201; Mona Bhan, Dept of Sociology and Anthropology, De Pauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135; Susan Terrio, Dept of Anthropology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057. Address inquiries to the Chair of Book Prize Committee, Susan Terrio, terrios@georgetown.edu.

ARTICLE (LAW AND LANGUAGE): French-speaking lawyers find advantages to being bilingual

 Decades ago, if a lawyer in south Louisiana didn’t know how to read, write and speak French, there was a limit to the legal work available to him.
Just about everyone spoke the language brought to Louisiana by the Acadians in the late 1700s, after England forced them from their homes in eastern Canada.
“There was a time in Lafayette when the common language on Johnston Street was French, not English,” lawyer John Hernandez Jr. said.
Wills, often written by hand, property deeds and other documents that dealt with the passing of one generation’s goods to the next were in French, and woe to the lawyer who didn’t know the language.

BLOG: Why Philosophy Has Been Central to Legal Education for More Than a Century


PROJECT: Women's Legal Landmarks Project


CONFERENCE: Annual Conference of the European Association of Law and Economics


GRANTS: Society of Legal Scholarr Research Grants 2014


CONFERENCE: Law and Anthropology


ARTICLE: Shariah Law through the Front Door - A Training for Lawyers in London


FYI: Fordyce on Lacey on Hart


20 January 2014

JURISPRUDENCE (Legal Philosophy): A (Hasty) Cry for Help

A (Hasty) Cry for Help

I've taught Jurisprudence (Legal Philosophy) for many years now. Within the limitations of a twelve-week seminar format, I've always attempted to place the subject in comparative perspective, ie both across time and space. 

Indeed, insofar as possible this has been a sort of anthropology and social history of legal-normative thought as well. Anyone who knows me will know that I want to convey the 'hybridity' or complexity of normativity, past and present. This includes Western 'law' and 'legality', concepts that precede the state, but that can be distinguished from other forms of normativity. 

(But that's an argument for another time and place ...)

Each year for my class, I've used John Kelly's Short History of Legal Theory (1992). The book is imperfect, whiggish and Euro-centric, but I've found nothing better--at least not in English--for encouraging in-class discussions of 'law' in history. A more socio-legal history of normativity would be useful, but ...

A second book is then required for contemporary legal philosophy in the five or six weeks left in the semester. Each year, I've tried a different text, each with its own drawbacks. Only Roger Cotterrell's Politics of Jurisprudence: A Critical Introduction to Legal Philosophy has been used more than once. Many others are too limited in their focus or too long to be practical. Few teaching texts treat 'legal-normative pluralism' seriously, none make it central to the text.

In my class, these texts are supplemented by an article or two by William Twining, ie 'General jurisprudence' and perhaps 'Normative and legal pluralism: a global perspective'. Twining's General jurisprudence: understanding law from a global perspective (2009) is excellent, but it isn't a teaching text. The same is true of Paul Schiff Berman's Global legal pluralism: a jurisprudence of law beyond borders (2012). More importantly, Berman's book is a (prescriptive) normative jurisprudence rather than a (descriptive) jurisprudence of normativities. I'm not naive, but my approach presents hybridity as unavoidable, whether or not it is desirable. 

It might be too late for this semester, but I wonder if anyone has suggestions for a text in English that might better meet these requirements? I'm aware that I may just have to write such a book myself, ie either a monograph or a teaching text (a casebook-style compilation) that starts from the fact of hybrid normativities, places them in historical and comparative context, all the while reflecting on the canon. But, like you, I'm busy.

Let me know your thoughts.

-SPD

19 January 2014

BLOG: Institute of Art and Law

Check out the Institute of Art and Law:

The Institute of Art and Law is an educational organisation giving knowledge and perspective on the law relating to cultural heritage a concept which includes art, antiquities, archives, archaeology, architecture, monuments, treasure and much, much more.  IAL's educational remit is fulfilled through publishing and courses. It convenes distance learning and intensive courses (both public and in-house) on art and museums law, as well as seminars, study groups and conferences in the United Kingdom and abroad. It also publishes monographs and commentaries on all aspects of the law relating to cultural heritage, in addition to a quarterly periodical, Art Antiquity and Law, now in its eighteenth year.

The law of cultural heritage is a wide remit: it encompasses a vast range of subject matter, from copyright and art theft, to protection of buried treasure and shipwrecks, return of human remains from museum collections, restitution of illegally exported antiquities and art wrongfully taken in time of war including Holocaust-looted, archives and religious objects, through to planning regulations protecting listed buildings and scheduled monuments, and the organisation of international blockbuster exhibitions.

Internationally recognised, IAL delivers, through its educational and publishing programmes, a depth of knowledge unrivalled elsewhere.

MAP: We Have Been Misled ...




SEMINAR: The Position of Heads of State and Senior Officials in International Law




CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Informal Enforcement of Competition Law


EDUCATION: Doctoral Program - Human Rights under Pressure - Ethics, Law, and Politics




AWARD: MacKinnon receives Ginsburg Award


LAW AND RELIGION: Around the Web This Week