Law, Culture and the Humanities current issue

Editorial

Sarat, A. — 2009-09-03

What is Law (Good) For? Tactical Maneuvers of the Legal War at Home

Delaney, D. — 2009-09-03

This commentary offers an analysis of some of the ways in which one war — the American War in Vietnam — and its legal context can be understood as mutually constitutive. The focus is on efforts of anti-war legal activists to use elements of legality to reconstitute that war and the effects these engagements had on transformatively re-constituting the cultural domain of the legal itself. After presenting a brief catalog of skirmishes and tactical maneuvers I conclude with the suggestion that this journal and the kinds of scholarship that finds expression here might be counted as part of the "legacy" of the legal war at home.

Species War: Law, Violence and Animals

Kochi, T. — 2009-09-03

The law of war contains a hidden foundation. This foundation is species war. In this paper I begin to develop the idea of species war and show how our modern conceptions of the laws of war contain within them the historical and contemporary operation of species war. In focussing upon how legal and moral decisions about "legitimate violence" are made with respect to judgements about the "value" of "life," I show how species war operates as a fundamental, but often forgotten category, of legal and political philosophy.

A Critical History of Cosmopolitanism

Leung, G. — 2009-09-03

This article excavates certain hidden and suppressed moments in the ancient and modern history of cosmopolitanism. In contradistinction to mainstream cosmopolitanism, which generally reduces the concept to a liberal politics of global pacification, an essential agonism between cosmos and polis that is further reflected in the aporetic relation between freedom and law will be revealed. Cosmopolitanism is not only a philosophy of perpetual peace, it is also, paradoxically, a call to perpetual provocation.

Having Your Porn and Condemning it Too: A Case Study of a "Kiddie Porn" Expose

Khan, U. — 2009-09-03

In 2005, the Toronto Police Department’s Sex Crime Unit embarked upon the unprecedented move to go public with forensic evidence related to an on-going child pornography investigation. This strategy provided the public with exceptional glimpses into the taboo arena of child pornography. In this article, I trace the media coverage of this investigation to highlight the rhetorical and aesthetic components that, I posit, are related to a pedophilic logic. My goal is to reveal the latent but omnipresent desire encoded in the media narratives to imagine children and childhood in sexualized contexts. In particular, my analysis maps the literary and photographic aspects of the coverage to highlight the "performative contradiction" of the texts; though the media articulated a one-dimensional story of outrage and condemnation, the rhetorical and pictorial aspects of the story produced meanings that undermined the purported censure of child sexualization.

"The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience": The Legal Community Reads Hamlet

Boyd, R. — 2009-09-03

This article explores the response of the contemporary legal community to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play that has garnered much attention from those who would investigate the complex intersections of law and literature. The particular focus of this article is the way legal scholars have interpreted Hamlet’s "problem," that is to say, his famous delay in carrying out acts of violent retribution at the behest of his murdered father’s ghost. Such scholarly speculations have much to tell us, for to consider the meaning of Hamlet’s delay is also to grapple with such critical issues as the relationship between private vengeance and the law and the ethical meaning of violence in any codified legal system. This article thus surveys several representative readings of the Hamlet’s "problem" in an effort to outline how the contemporary legal community has engaged the deepest legal and ethical questions residing at the center of Shakespeare’s play.

Book Review: Hegel's Laws: The Legitimacy of a Modern Legal Order: By William E. Conklin, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. 400 pp. $65.00 (Cloth). ISBN 10-0804750300

Bhandar, B. — 2009-09-03

Book Review: "Ruling the Agon." Review of "Law and Agonistic Politics": By Andrew Schaap, ed., Aldershot, UK, Ashgate, 2009. 242 pp. $99.95, {pound}52.25 (Cloth). ISBN 10-0754673146. ISBN 13-978-0754673149

Hirsch, A. K. — 2009-09-03

Book Review: Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective: By Sally Engle Merry, Chichester, UK, Wiley-Blackwell: 2009. 211 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-631-22359-7

Hua, J. — 2009-09-03

Book Review: The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza: By Alexandre Lefebvre, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2008. 336 pp. $27.95 (paper). ISBN 10-0804759855

Moore, N. — 2009-09-03