Call For Papers

Israeli Law and Society Association
International Conference


Secularism, Nationalism and Human Rights: Law and Politics in the Middle East and Europe

December 20-21, 2009


Short description

Secularism as the separation between religion and politics, nationalism as the ethnic premise of the modern state, and human rights, are commonly identified as fundamental attributes of modern law and politics. And yet these foundational ideals are neither global nor even on the whole "Western". They have their origins in specific European traditions, and they continue to play diverse and multiple roles in Europe and in the Middle East. The conference seeks to examine the influence of these legacies on the formation of law and legal institutions in Europe and the Middle East and in the different contexts in which Europe and the Middle East intersect, primarily in Israel.

Among the questions the conference will address are:

" How have secularism, nationalism and human rights shaped law and
legal institutions in Europe and the Middle East? What are the different, conflicting and complimentary meanings given to these notions across and within legal jurisdictions? To what extent are these legacies distinctly European and thus differ even from other Western traditions, such as the United States, where secularism, nationalism, and human rights seem to have a very different significance?
" How and under what conditions have these traditions been
implemented, resisted, subverted, and transformed in Israel, Palestine, and more generally in the Middle East? Conversely, how has Europe's recent encounter with the Middle East, primarily through labor immigration, shaped and reshaped the formation of these ideals? What roles have law and legal institutions played in the dissemination, transformation, and enforcement of these legacies?
" How have these legacies affected differently diverse groups within
European and non-European societies, including ethnic and religious minorities and other potentially disadvantaged groups? In what ways do these ideas mirror power relations and how do the legal institutions in their service shape images and practices of gender, class and ethnicity?
" To what extent can and should the specifically European version of
these ideals be accepted outside of Europe? Can human rights be the legal and moral grounds, from which nationalism and secularism be valued, or does the category of human rights itself suffer from euro-centrism? Do better models exist elsewhere and what would be the conditions for local traditions to emerge?
" Finally, are nationalism, secularism and human rights at all
relevant categories for analyzing what has often been described as a growingly post-nationalist, post-secularist and post-human world?


Authors from all disciplines (including law, sociology, anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, and philosophy) are strongly encouraged to submit papers on topics relevant to the above themes. Papers on other themes will also be considered, but due to the limited number of presentations this year we will not be able to accept all submissions.





Prof. Menachem Hofnung
Department of Political Science
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem 91905, Israel


Tel: Office :972-2-588-3164
Fax. 972-2-588-0281

Happy Birthday, Johann Wolfgang

Happy Birthday to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born this day in 1749, died March 22, 1832. Goethe was the son of a lawyer, and studied law in Leipzig as a young man. Legal themes abound in his major work Faust. Check out this site for more about him.

Dominick Dunne Dies

Writer Dominick Dunne has died. Mr. Dunne was the author of a number of popular novels taking society and crime as their theme, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, A Season in Purgatory, and An Inconvenient Woman. He wrote regularly for Vanity Fair.

Here is more from the New York Times and from Newsday about Mr. Dunne's life and career. He is survived by two sons, the actor Griffin Dunne, and Alex Dunne.

A Popular German Crime Drama

Michael Kimmelman examines the popular German police drama Tatort (Crime Scene) for the New York Times here. Notes Mr. Kimmelman,

“Tatort” is a little akin to what Johnny Carson's “Tonight Show” was in America. It’s one of those modest pop-culture symbols and long-standing common experiences that can be hard for outsiders to translate but that speak to, and of, a nation. First broadcast in 1970, before video games or food processors and when Germany seemed permanently split in two, the show adopted the age-old formula of a pair of detectives solving a murder to devise a distinctly German version of the crime drama.

Academic Fiction

In her current column in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Mentor discusses some academic novels of note, including those that kill off some of the more notorious characters we've all run across in our years (short or long) going around in academic circles. In addition to her mention of Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, Randall Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution, David Lodge's David Lodge's Changing Places and Small World, and Amanda Cross' (Carolyn Heilbrun's) An Imperfect Spy, among others, might I include Malcolm Bradbury's wonderful Eating People Is Wrong, A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance, Rebecca Goldstein's provocative The Mind-Body Problem, and Alison Lurie's The War Between the Tates (made into a tv movie in 1977). Bill Brewer has a list of such novels here.

Academic mysteries are a subgenre; check out authors by J. S. Borthwick (featuring Sarah Deane) and Edith Skom (featuring Beth Austin). There are webpages devoted to such works here and here.

Why would one read such novels? They're such fun, if one isn't the target. But if one is the writer, one might want to beware of some potential legal problems.

Legal dangers to avoid when writing one's tribute or critique of the academic world? Defamation by fiction comes to mind. How could that be possible when one is writing fiction? After all, part of the plaintiff's requirement in making out a defamation case is to show that a statement is "of and concerning her." This is tremendously difficult in a defamation by fiction case. If the work is fictional how can it be about her? What the plaintiff has to show is that at least some people who know her can figure out that the fictional character is meant to be her. According to one New York court, "For a fictional character to constitute actionable defamation, the description of the fictional character must be so closely akin to the real person claiming to be defamed that a reader of the book, knowing the real person, would have no difficulty linking the two. Superficial similarities are insufficient as is a common first name." Springer v. Viking Press, 90 A.D. 2d 315 (1982).

See above all the California case of Bindrim v. Mitchell, with commentary on the issue here from the First Amendment Center. Other claims that an unhappy colleague (or former colleague) claiming to recognize herself in a fictional work might make include false light. And now, as the Duke famously said to Mr. Gibbon, "Scribble, scribble..."

Call For Papers/Abstracts/Submissions

8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 13 - 16, 2010 Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa and Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel Honolulu Hawaii, USA

Since many people have individually asked for an extension of the submission deadline, we are extending the deadline for submissions to Saturday, September 12th, 2009.

Call for papers, abstracts, student papers, work-in-progress reports, research proposals, workshop proposals, poster sessions,research tables, or reports on issues related to teaching, practitioner forums, panel discussions, and tutorials.

All areas of arts and humanities are invited. You may submit your paper/proposal by using our online submission system! To use the system, and for detailed information about submitting see:
http://www.hichumanities.org/cfp_artshumanities.htm

To be removed from this list, please click the following link:
http://www.hichumanities.org/remove/ or copy and paste the link into any web browser.

Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities P.O. Box 75036 Honolulu, HI 96836 USA
Telephone: (808) 542-4385
Fax: (808) 947-2420
E-mail: humanities@hichumanities.org
Website: http://www.hichumanities.org

Law, Popular Culture, and The Wizard of Oz

MSNBC.com has this interesting article on the influence of L. Frank Baum's classic The Wizard of Oz and its iconic characters on popular culture. That Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard, and the Witches, good and bad, still have the power to transport us is fairly clear, even after seventy years, but how many of us analyze the law in that classic tale?

As it turns out, some people do. Stephen Easten of the University of Missouri, Columbia, Law School, uses the movie to teach students about witness examination.

Brian Tamahana discusses the political allegory in the book here (and yes, some of us knew it was in there, but it's still fun to read about it).

And a couple of newly published books analyzed both the history and symbolism of Baum's work: Evan I. Schwartz's Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story (2009) and Rebecca Loncraine, The Real Wizard of Oz (2009).

NBC Tries Out "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer"

NBC has ordered a pilot of the legal drama offered up by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson. "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer" is the second try at a legal series by the Peacock Network, which passed on the David E. Kelley-created "Legally Mad" last year.

Call For Papers

From Professor Andrew Majeske, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Call For Papers

Second Biennial Literature and Law Conference

When: April 16, 2010 (Friday)
Where: John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) (59th Street and 10th Avenue—near Lincoln Center in Manhattan)

Conference Organizer and Contact Person: Andrew Majeske,

This conference aims to bring scholars of literature and law into an interdisciplinary setting to share the fruits of their research and scholarship.

The conference’s keynote speaker is John Matteson, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. John Matteson is a professor in the English Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and obtained his JD from Harvard University.

The journal Law and Literature is in the process of publishing a special symposium issue containing full versions of select papers presented at the inaugural Literature and Law Conference, and we are in negotiations with the journal to do the same for this second biennial conference.

A limited number of “Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report” tickets may be available (we are still working on this) for the evening before the conference (Thursday April 15th) on a first-come, first-served basis. These shows are taped in studios only a few blocks walk from John Jay.
.
We invite papers dealing with all aspect of literature and law, including papers which might address literature dealing with some of the following:

-Comparative Justice
-The rule of law
-Rhetoric and law
-Judicial discretion and its abuse
-Blind justice
-Common versus Civil law
-(Post)Colonial Justice
-Law and Deception
-(Mis)Interpretation and Competing Interpretations of Law
-Non Western Justice and Injustice
-Comic Justice and Injustice

Please submit abstracts (250 words or less) to Andrew Majeske, by Friday, January 15, 2010.

Publication Opportunities

From Professor Andrew Majeske, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Manuscripts Sought
The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Literature and Law

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press invites the submission of proposals for books, monographs, or essay collections in the interdisciplinary field of literature and law. The series welcomes submissions of monographs and essay collections. The series is affiliated with the Modern Language Association’s Law as Literature Discussion Group and with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s biennial Literature and Law Conference. It benefits from the advice of an international board of leading scholars in the field.

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press publishes scholarly books for the academic community. We do not publish textbooks or workbooks. Essay collection submissions must contain previously unpublished material, be focused on a coherent theme, and have substantial scholarly introductions. Manuscripts must follow Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, in format. For further details on our editorial policies, consult www.fdu.edu/fdupress.

Proposals should be sent to:

Dr. Andrew Majeske
Department of English
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York NY 10019
ajmajeske@gmail.com

Fall 2009 TV Discussed On NPR's "Talk of the Nation"

Talk of the Nation has this feature on fall's shows.

Iconographies of Crime

Russell D. Covey, Georgia State University College of Law, has published "Criminal Madness: Cultural Iconography and Insanity," in volume 61 (2009) of the Stanford Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Law relies on a well-developed and constantly evolving iconography to tell its stories. Like lawyers and judges, legal scholars typically rely upon official legal sources to flesh out the implicit meaning of the law’s language. But “official law,” with its stress on statutory language, legislative intent, and case precedent, is quite plainly an insufficient source for understanding the texture and nuance of legal language. To better understand law’s implicit meaning, readers of law need to mine unofficial as well as official sources of law. These unofficial sources often provide insight into, and occasionally substance for, law’s official meaning. Popular culture is one important source of legal meaning. In a myriad of ways, popular culture influences the making, interpretation, and application of law. By illuminating and contextualizing problems, creating certain types of narrative, or favoring some narrative constructions over others, popular culture frequently determines what kind of law is made.

My primary interest in this paper revolves around the iconography of crime, mental illness, and insanity. These concepts not only go to the heart of the legal understanding of human responsibility, they also have long provided an unending well of narratives to feed the human hunger for meaning-making stories. This Article attempts to trace the iconography of criminal madness in popular cinema and to link it with the law’s development over the same span. Part I provides some prefatory observations about the relation of film and culture to law. Part II explores the depiction of criminal madness in the 1930s, primarily through the monster movies of the era. Part III describes the growing embrace of psychological and psychiatric theories in midcentury cinema, which occurred precisely during a period in which the insanity defense was liberalized and constitutional checks on the state’s power to institutionalize mad criminals were recognized. Finally, Part IV examines dramatic post-1970s changes in cinematic portrayals of criminals, the criminal justice system, and mad criminals, and explores ways in which the new iconography of criminal madness contributed to a dramatic shrinkage of the rights of mentally ill offenders.

Download the article from SSRN here.

LatCrit Conference Scheduled For October 1-4

From Anthony Varona, American University School of Law

In case you have not yet received it, here is the full preliminary conference schedule for LatCrit XIV and the LatCrit/SALT New Faculty Development Workshop in Washington, October 1 through 4, hosted by American U. Washington College of Law:
www.tinyurl.com/LatCritXIV-program

And here are the hotel and conference registration materials:


The conference theme narrative and initial call for papers/panels are here, although the submission deadline has long past and, absent cancellations, there will be no more panel and work-in-progress slots available (with the exception of commentators for works-in-progress colloquia):


The LatCrit XIV Host Committee and our colleagues on the LatCrit board could not be more excited about this year's conference. Thanks to the very many colleagues (145 at final count) who submitted interesting and engaging proposals, LatCrit XIV promises to be a rich and memorable conference. We hope that many of you will be able to join us. Please note that September 14th is the deadline both for conference early bird registration (at a discounted rate) as well as for the early bird LatCrit hotel rate of $189, but that Labor Day, September 7th, is the deadline for an even lower "earlier bird" hotel rate of $179 -- $40 less than the hotel's standard room rate. Our room block is selling very swiftly, and the hotel may sell out before these deadlines, so please do not delay in making your reservations. Washington is hosting a number of large conferences around the LatCrit XIV weekend and hotel rooms outside of our block may be scarce and expensive.

Mad Men

The new season of Mad Men premieres Sunday on AMC.

Writing Domestic Violence Scholarship

Lively discussion between Nancy Lemon and Christina Hoff Sommers over Myths or Facts in Feminist Scholarship? in The Chronicle Review.

And the Beat Goes On

The latest craze: "auto-tuning" the news, courtesy of Antares Audio Technologies. Here's a clip from CNN. The creators include social commentary in their tune-ups, creating clips one can then deconstruct. Included here is part of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Here are more auto-tune clips from the web. Here's info from NOVA on the technology.

Musicians debate the use of auto tune, which corrects pitch, for various reasons. Here is an article from MTV on Jay-Z's song "Death of Auto Tune."

New Film From Women Make Movies

From Women Make Movies

WMM NEW RELEASE! MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER

A new film about a young Malian mother's fight with the U.S. legal system to protect her daughter from female genital mutilation


"Heart-wrenching testament to the integrity and solidarity of women in the face of staggering adversity."-Ed Gonzalez, The Village Voice



WMM is pleased to announce the release of MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER from Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater, which had its world premiere at Silverdocs last month, followed by a screening at the Human Rights

Watch International Film Festival. Threatened with deportation, Mrs. Goundo must convince an immigration judge that her two-year-old daughter is in danger: if returned to her family’s native country of Mali, she will be forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM).



Sensitive and moving, MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER reveals how women are profoundly affected by immigration law and political asylum struggles and travels between an FGM ceremony in a Malian village to the expatriate community of Philadelphia, where Mrs. Goundo navigates the American legal system for her daughter's future.



VIEW A CLIP



CLICK HERE TO ORDER OR LEARN MORE

Star Trek Time: Ethics In Space

The New York Times has an interview with NASA bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe here.

Call For Papers

Call for Papers: “Ah Got De Law in My Mouth”: Black Women Writing Justice

41st Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
April 7-11, 2010
Montreal, Quebec - Hilton Bonaventure

This panel seeks papers which consider the representation of law, rights, and justice in African-American women’s literature. How have African-American women writers critically engaged the legal system and/or portrayed American legal discourse? Topics include, but are certainly not limited to: slavery, the civil rights movement, immigration, suffrage, lynching, and the prison-industrial complex. Please send a 1-page abstract and a brief bio as Word or PDF attachments to Courtney D. Marshall, cdj@ucla.edu, with “NEMLA” in the subject line.

Deadline: September 30, 2009



Courtney Marshall

English and Women’s Studies

University of New Hampshire

Call For Papers; Conference

From Susan Sage Heinzelman

For details on the joint conference from Dec 2 to Dec 5th 2009, in brisbane, Australia, and the call for papers, please
see:


http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/translegality
and http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/translegality/call-for-papers

Fellowship Opportunity

From Susan Sage Heinzelman

Law & Society Post-doctoral Fellowship
2010-11 Academic Year
Institute for Legal Studies – University of Wisconsin Law School
~~~ Application Deadline: January 8, 2010 ~~~

Eligibility: While non-U.S. citizens may apply, this fellowship is intended for early career scholars who plan to compete for a University teaching position in the U.S. market.

About the Fellowship: The Institute for Legal Studies of the University of Wisconsin Law School will appoint a post-doctoral fellow for the 2010-11 academic year. We invite applications from scholars who are in the early (pre-tenure) stage of their career or scholars whose careers have been interrupted or delayed. Eligibility is limited to humanities or social science scholars who work in the law and society tradition, for example, anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, and sociologists. Advanced ABD graduate students may apply, but the PhD must be completed before beginning the fellowship. The stipend will be $25,000, plus a research allowance of $5,000 and a benefits package that includes health insurance.

The fellowship is designed to support a scholar at an early stage in his or her career when, under prevailing circumstances, career pressures or teaching responsibilities might divert the individual away from research. At the Institute, the Fellow will be able to devote most of his or her time to research and writing and will find a sympathetic and critical audience to support that work. Fellows are expected to be in full-time residence in Madison, to organize and lead a colloquium for graduate students, and to actively participate in the intellectual life of the Institute, which includes lectures, workshops, conferences and colloquia.

Deadlines: The Institute for Legal Studies holds one post-doctoral fellowship competition per year. Completed applications, including letters of reference, must be received by January 8, 2010, in order to ensure full consideration. The award will be announced around March 1, 2010.

How to Apply: Application materials must be submitted by mail; materials sent by electronic mail or fax will not be considered. In evaluating applications, the Institute will focus on the potential contribution of the candidate to the intellectual life of the Institute; the originality and significance of the candidate’s proposed research project; the candidate’s scholarly promise, achievements, and ability to complete the project; and the likelihood that the finished product will advance basic understanding of the topic. A complete application consists of the following:

• Curriculum vitae (with address and complete contact information).

• Official transcripts (graduate level only).

• Three letters of recommendation (to be sent separately).
If the dissertation has not been completed, one of the letters must confirm the expected completion date.

• A research proposal (8-12 double-spaced pages).
It is essential that the proposal situate the research in the existing literature and that it address relevant methodological issues, including sources of data. The proposed work may be in any of the social science or humanistic traditions associated with law and society scholarship, and may use any form of data; the project will be evaluated on its merits, in reference to the tradition in which it is situated.

Address/Contact: Applications should be mailed to: Law & Society Fellowship Program; Institute for Legal Studies, UW Law School, 975 Bascom Mall, Madison WI 53706-1399. Questions may be addressed to Pam Hollenhorst, Associate Director of ILS, at pshollen@wisc.edu.

Information about the Institute for Legal Studies and its activities can be found at http://law.wisc.edu/ils/

Fellowship Opportunity: Digital Humanities Centers

From Fiona Barrett, Director, HASTAC Scholars

Fellowships at Digital Humanities Centers:
The NEH is sponsoring a number of Fellowships that will be take place at Digital Humanities Centers. Dante Noto, the Associate Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), has graciously offered to work with one applicant to apply for this NEH grant. Should the grant be awarded, the Fellow would work through the UCHRI and all details would be worked out between the successful applicant and the Institute.


NEH Grant:

UCHRI:

How to apply:
We are hoping someone in our HASTAC network is interested in pursuing this very exciting fellowship opportunity at UCHRI. Dante is currently collecting the information from interested applicants. He will be out of the office until August 17, so will not be able to respond to inquiries until then.

Please email him, before August 17:
- Your name, current position (post-doc, salaried position, faculty, etc.), & contact information
- C.V.
- A short introduction to your work and what project you would like to pursue with this grant. A few paragraphs should suffice -- the successful applicant and Dante will develop the NEH application more fully together. The point is to introduce him to your work and see if your application would be appropriate for both the grant and for the UCHRI.
- UCHRI will collect these suggestions, and will pursue the NEH grant with one applicant.

Eligibility:
A few brief words on eligibility. Check the grant site for more details:
- You cannot be a student at this time - you could have completed any level of education (usually an MA or Ph.D.) by the application deadline, but cannot be a current student at a degree-granting institution.
- This means that current HASTAC Scholars are not eligible - but HASTAC alumni (if they have graduated), faculty, forum participants, and anyone not currently a student are eligible.
- You must be either a US Citizen *OR* you can be a foreign national who has been living in the US for the previous three years
- You can apply for other NEH awards but cannot hold this one at the same time as another (you can apply to more than one, but only win one at a time)
- The Digital Humanities Center and the Applicant submit the application together. You cannot submit an application if you are not working in tandem with a DHC.
- Each applicant can only apply with one Center per deadline (you cannot submit your application with more than one Digital Humanities Center)
- Each Center can only submit one application per deadline
- There are rules on the type of work that these Fellowships can support - check the application for more details
- Firm Grant Deadline: September 15, 2010

Contact Information:
Dante Noto
Associate Director, Research Development and External Relations
UC Humanities Research Institute
307 Aldrich Hall
Irvine, CA 92697-3350

Email: dnoto@hri.uci.edu

Call For Papers

Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions
8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities January 13 - 16, 2010 Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa and Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel Honolulu Hawaii, USA



Submission Deadline: August 21, 2009



Sponsored by:
University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods

Web address: http://www.hichumanities.org Email address: humanities@hichumanities.org

The 8th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities will be held from January 13 (Wednesday) to January 16 (Saturday), 2010 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa and the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel in Honolulu,

Hawaii. The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. Cross-disciplinary

submissions with other fields are welcome.

Topic Areas (All Areas of Arts & Humanities are Invited):
*Anthropology
*American Studies
*Archeology
*Architecture
*Art
*Art History
*Dance
*English
*Ethnic Studies
*Film
*Folklore
*Geography
*Graphic Design
*History
*Landscape Architecture
*Languages
*Literature
*Linguistics
*Music
*Performing Arts
*Philosophy
*Postcolonial Identities
*Product Design
*Religion
*Second Language Studies
*Speech/Communication
*Theatre
*Visual Arts
*Other Areas of Arts and Humanities
*Cross-disciplinary areas of the above related to each other or other areas.

Submitting a Proposal:

You may submit your paper/proposal by using our online submission system! To use the system, and for detailed information about submitting see: http://www.hichumanities.org/cfp_artshumanities.htm

To be removed from this list, please click the following link:
http://www.hichumanities.org/remove/ or copy and paste the link into any web browser.

Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities P.O. Box 75036 Honolulu, HI 96836 USA
Telephone: (808) 542-4385
Fax: (808) 947-2420
E-mail: humanities@hichumanities.org
Website: http://www.hichumanities.org

The Geography of Crime; Crime and Reality TV

Found while I was looking for something else:

Lisa Kadonaga, Strange Countries and Secret Worlds in Ruth Rendell's Crime Novels, 88 Geographical Review 413-428 (July 1998).

If you're interested in crime, gender, and reality TV, here's something of interest:

Gray Cavender, Lisa Bond-Maupin, and Nancy C. Jurik, The Construction of Gender in Reality Crime TV, 13 Gender and Society 643-663 (October 1999).

Full texts available via JSTOR.

Some New Law Related Drama Series Possible For Fall, Mid-Season

More legal and law-related drama promised from the USA Network. The series under development include Hotel Dix, about a hotel detective (hence the name); Facing Kate, about "a mediator from a family of corporate lawyers"; a pair of series about amateur sleuths, Gourmet Detective, featuring a culinary detective, and Busy Bodies, about a "soccer mom" and her friend, a "gay dad", who solve mysteries; Good Cop, Bad Cop, about siblings in law enforcement; and another legal drama, Louise Candell. Here's more.

Brave New World To Be a Brave New Film?

From Steven Zeitchick's Risky Biz Blog, this news: Ridley Scott is making a film out of Aldous Huxley's iconic novel Brave New World. His partner: Leonardo di Caprio. The pair are working out of Universal Studios. More here.

The Influence of Early Literary Theorists On Legal Writers

Stephen E. Smith, Santa Clara University, ha spublished "The Poetry of Persuasion: Early Literary Theory and Its Advice to Legal Writers," in volume 6 of the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (2009). Here is the abstract.

This article will address the possibility and necessity of aesthetic
pleasure as a part of persuasive endeavors. It will do so through a review of early literary theorists’ statements about what poetry does artistically, and how it does it. It will seek insight from these theorists by extracting from their writings those precepts that seem most useful to the legal writer. This is a selective and non-comprehensive review of the work of a variety of early theorists. It would be impossible to extract from each writer every “helpful hint” he might provide. Moreover, in assembling a variety of suggestions and commands from writers over the centuries, this article does not presume to be mining new concepts in writing practice. The ideas are not necessarily unfamiliar ones, but come from early, perhaps original sources.

The article also attempts to go from these past exhortations to some sort of present-day pertinence. How can the advice be employed in a legal writer’s practice? While the aphorisms of early theorists are invaluable, situating them in practical context may be helpful.

Download the article from SSRN here.