Essays by noted theorists such as Drucilla Cornell, Nancy Fraser, Peter Goodrich, and Gayatri Spivak provide a bridge between critical cultural studies in the humanities and the Critical Legal Studies movement demonstrating the transdisciplinary nature of both fields.
The Legal Studies Reader is an innovative, clearly focused contribution to the growing literature in the new area of legal studies. Emphasizing the large issues that animate current debates over legal rules and principles and the proper roles of lawyers and judges, this is a book of conversations by the editors and some of the major figures of modern legal thought. Ronald Dworkin, John Finnis, Lon Fuller, H.L.A. Hart, Marc Galanter and others appear here in the seminal essays that have influenced generations of students of the law. Beginning with a series of exchanges aimed at highlighting differences and leading the student into the essays in the second part, the editors debate law and violence, law and objectivity, law and society, and law and reason. The essays that follow develop these themes in depth, often with explicit reference to one another. Ranging from Legal Realism to the «Berkeley Perspective» to Critical Race Theory and Legal Feminism, The Legal Studies Reader charts the main theoretical positions that still dominate our thinking about law. Anyone interested in how law affects the pursuit of a fully developed, truly human life should read this book.
Much writing in critical legal studies has been devoted to laying bare the contradictions in liberal thought. There have been attacks and counterattacks on the liberal position and on the more conservative law and economics position. Kelman demonstrates that any critique of law and economics is inextricably tied to a broader critique of liberalism.
The Legal Case: Cross-Currents in Law and the Humanitiesre-examines the seemingly familiar notion of a ‘legal case’ by exploring the histories, practices, conventions and rhetoric of ‘case law’. The doctrine of stare decisis, whereby courts are bound by precedent cases, underpins legal reasoning in the common law world. At the same time, the legal case is itself a product of institutional and linguistic practices, and raises broader questions about the foundations and boundaries of law. The idea of the ‘case’ as an ordered, closed narrative with a determinate outcome is, for example, integral to medical, psychoanalytic, as well as forensic discourses; whilst the notion of the ‘strange case’ is a popular one in the English fiction of the late nineteenth century. What is at stake in the attempt to categorise or define a situation as a legal case? Is the notion of binding precedent in ‘case law’ really distinctive to the common law? And if so, why? What can the concept of a ‘case’ in other disciplines and discourses tell us about how it operates in law? With contributions from legal philosophers, legal historians, literary critics, and linguists, this book moves beyond the jurisprudential discussion of the nature and authority of the legal case, as it draws on insights from philosophy, m linguistics, narratology, drama, and film.
To understand how the legal system works, students must consider the law in terms of its structures, processes, language, and modes of thought and argument—in short, they must become literate in the field. Legal Literacy fulfills this aim by providing a foundational understanding of key concepts such as legal personhood, jurisdiction, and precedent, and by introducing students to legal research and writing skills. Examples of cases, statutes, and other legal materials support these concepts. While Legal Literacy is an introductory text, it also challenges students to consider critically the system they are studying. Touching on significant socio-legal issues such as access to justice, legal jargon, and plain language, Zariski critiques common legal traditions and practices, and analyzes what it means “to think like a lawyer.” As such, the text provides a sound basis for those who wish to pursue further studies in law or legal studies as well as those seeking a better understanding of how the legal field relates to the society that it serves.
Regulation has become a key form of state activity and an area of burgeoning academic concern, both in Public Law and Economics. This collection makes available to the reader a number of indispensable readings. The text considers the central topics of regulation and looks to theory as well as practice, enforcement as well as rule-making, and supra-national as well as domestic concerns. Particular attention is paid to the ways that regulatory developments can be explained, the choices of technique that confront regulators and the varieties of regulatory style that are encountered within and between different regimes. The introductory essay considers the maturation of regulation both as a practice and as a discipline. it examines regulation as a topic for study, reviews major developments in regulation and outlines central themes. This book is intended as a resource for upper-level undergraduate students and teachers of regulation as part of degree courses in law, economics, business, public policy and politics, but also for those involved in or subject to regulation on a daily basis.
In this groundbreaking book, Scalia and Garner systematically explain all the most important principles of constitutional, statutory, and contractual interpretation in an engaging and informative style with hundreds of illustrations from actual cases. Is a burrito a sandwich? Is a corporation entitled to personal privacy? If you trade a gun for drugs, are you using a gun in a drug transaction? The authors grapple with these and dozens of equally curious questions while explaining the most principled, lucid, and reliable techniques for deriving meaning from authoritative texts. Meanwhile, the book takes up some of the most controversial issues in modern jurisprudence. What, exactly, is textualism? Why is strict construction a bad thing? What is the true doctrine of originalism? And which is more important: the spirit of the law, or the letter? The authors write with a well-argued point of view that is definitive yet nuanced, straightforward yet sophisticated.
An important collection examining how socio-legal studies and empirical legal research can be integrated into the law curriculum, looking at both core qualifying subjects and stand-alone socio-legal modules, and considering theoretical and methodological approaches combined with practical examples.
Essays by noted theorists such as Drucilla Cornell, Nancy Fraser, Peter Goodrich, and Gayatri Spivak provide a bridge between critical cultural studies in the humanities and the Critical Legal Studies movement demonstrating the transdisciplinary nature of both fields.
Transgender studies is the latest area of academic inquiry to grow out of the exciting nexus of queer theory, feminist studies, and the history of sexuality. Because transpeople challenge our most fundamental assumptions about the relationship between bodies, desire, and identity, the field is both fascinating and contentious. The Transgender Studies Reader puts between two covers fifty influential texts with new introductions by the editors that, taken together, document the evolution of transgender studies in the English-speaking world. By bringing together the voices and experience of transgender individuals, doctors, psychologists and academically-based theorists, this volume will be a foundational text for the transgender community, transgender studies, and related queer theory.