Looking At Asian American Culture and Racial Classification

Jennifer Ann Ho (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) has published Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture (Rutgers University Press, May 2015). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

The sheer diversity of the Asian American populace makes them an ambiguous racial category. Indeed, the 2010 U.S. Census lists twenty-four Asian-ethnic groups, lumping together under one heading people with dramatically different historical backgrounds and cultures. In Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, Jennifer Ann Ho shines a light on the hybrid and indeterminate aspects of race, revealing ambiguity to be paramount to a more nuanced understanding both of race and of what it means to be Asian American. 

Exploring a variety of subjects and cultural artifacts, Ho reveals how Asian American subjects evince a deep racial ambiguity that unmoors the concept of race from any fixed or finite understanding. For example, the book examines the racial ambiguity of Japanese American nisei Yoshiko Nakamura deLeon, who during World War II underwent an abrupt transition from being an enemy alien to an assimilating American, via the Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942. It looks at the blogs of Korean, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese Americans who were adopted as children by white American families and have conflicted feelings about their “honorary white” status. And it discusses Tiger Woods, the most famous mixed-race Asian American, whose description of himself as “Cablinasian”—reflecting his background as Black, Asian, Caucasian, and Native American—perfectly captures the ambiguity of racial classifications.   

Race is an abstraction that we treat as concrete, a construct that reflects only our desires, fears, and anxieties. Jennifer Ho demonstrates in Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture that seeing race as ambiguous puts us one step closer to a potential antidote to racism. 

Frolics and Detours

The Hollywood Reporter covers a unique battle of the bands: with lawyer-musicians here.  This year, the event, called Law Rocks, featured groups such as Privileged Communication (Perkins Coie), and Run DLA (DLA Piper), Attractive Nuisance (Greines Martin), and Big Dicta (Doll Amir Eley). Money raised at the event goes to charity.

Data Collection, Data Breaches, and Star Wars

Dan Solove (George Washington Law, Teach Privacy) points out that the Empire might have defeated the Rebel Alliance had it mastered data collection. Think about the data breaches in Star Wars alone. Dr. Solove also notes something that has always bothered me: Ben Kenobi is not exactly a great alias when your actual name is Obi Wan Kenobi ("this is not the Jedi Warrior named Kenobi you're looking for. Move along, move along.")

Now, Luke's sister Leia was, I believe, living under an alias: she had been adopted after her mother died in childbirth. So it's possible that the Empire (and Darth Vader) did not know who she was at the beginning of Star Wars, especially if she had a new birth certifcate and the government of Alderaan sealed her adoption records. However, Vader certainly knew who Luke was, since he lived with his uncle (Vader's brother). At any rate, an entertaining look at information privacy, data collection, and Big Data in a Very Big Film Franchise.

The Publishing History of "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder"

Ross E. Davies, George Mason University School of Law; The Green Bag, has published The Regulatory Adventure of the Two Norwood Builders: Sherlock Holmes Crosses Paths with Congress, the President, the Courts, and the Administrative State, in the Press at 2015 Green Bag Almanac 567.
Here is the abstract.

It was almost certainly some combination of law on the books and law in the works that inspired the New York World to publish its 1911 version of the Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” in not one, but two, formats. (In its Sunday editions from April 9 to July 2, 1911, the World republished the thirteen stories from The Return of Sherlock Holmes in their original sequence, with “Norwood Builder” appearing on April 16.) The law on the books was a series of interpretations of the Mail Classification Act of 1879 by the U.S. Post Office Department (in 1901) and the U.S. Supreme Court (in 1904). The law in the works was the ongoing congressional and presidential interest in tinkering with postal service in general and second-class mail rates in particular — an interest that manifested itself in 1911 in the form of hearings conducted in New York City by a special federal Postal Commission headed by Justice Charles Evans Hughes. The results were: (a) a colorful, relatively small, booklet version of “Norwood Builder” (and similar booklets of the other stories in the series) for in-town readers of the World, and (b) black-and-white, relatively large, tabloid versions of the same stories for out-of-town subscribers to the newspaper. Unfortunately, decisions by several of America’s great libraries to discard their hard copies of the World have left us (at least for now) with the rather plain tabloid version of “Norwood Builder,” but not the colorful booklet version, to share with readers of the Green Bag Almanac & Reader.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Motherhood, the "Fallen Woman," and Popular Culture

Janet Mason Ellerby is publishing Embroidering the Scarlet A: Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film (University of Michigan, 2015). Here's a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

“Janet Ellerby brings an unusual and highly valuable voice to the field of American literary studies as she surveys representations of ‘fallen’women, birthmothers, and their illegitimate children in American fiction and film, as seen from a birthmother’s point of view. The author’s personal approach–her identification with the characters and their situations–makes for lively, fascinating, and distinctive readings…. a significant, pathbreaking book.”
— Margaret Homans, Yale University, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

Illustration : “Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks” by Mary Hallock Foote from The Scarlet Letter, James R. Osgood & Co, 1878.

Janet Mason Ellerby is Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Product Details

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• 290pp.
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• 2015
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• 978-0-472-07263-7

• $85.00 U.S.

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• 2015
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• 978-0-472-05263-9

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Stay connected

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- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

“Janet Ellerby brings an unusual and highly valuable voice to the field of American literary studies as she surveys representations of ‘fallen’women, birthmothers, and their illegitimate children in American fiction and film, as seen from a birthmother’s point of view. The author’s personal approach–her identification with the characters and their situations–makes for lively, fascinating, and distinctive readings…. a significant, pathbreaking book.”
— Margaret Homans, Yale University, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

Illustration : “Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks” by Mary Hallock Foote from The Scarlet Letter, James R. Osgood & Co, 1878.

Janet Mason Ellerby is Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Product Details

• 6 x 9.
• 290pp.
• 
  

Available for sale worldwide

---

• Hardcover
• 2015
• Available

• 978-0-472-07263-7

• $85.00 U.S.

---

• Paper
• 2015
• Available

• 978-0-472-05263-9

• $34.50 U.S.

---

Related Products

• Embroidering the Scarlet A
• Ebook
• 978-0-472-12105-2
• View Options

---

nothing

Keywords

• Unwed mother, birthmother, Birth Mother, Illegitimacy, The Scarlet Letter, Adoption, American literature, Feminist critique, American culture, American film, Fallen woman, Out-of-wedlock motherhood

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nothing

Stay connected

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- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

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Subjects

• Literary Studies - American Literature
• Media and Communication
• Gender Studies - Women's Studies
• Psychology

BISAC Categories

• Social Science - Women's Studies
• Literary Collections - American/General

Embroidering the Scarlet A

Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film

Janet Mason Ellerby

The first book-length study of changing cultural representations of unwed mothers in American fiction and film, from The Scarlet Letter to Juno

---

Description

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

“Janet Ellerby brings an unusual and highly valuable voice to the field of American literary studies as she surveys representations of ‘fallen’women, birthmothers, and their illegitimate children in American fiction and film, as seen from a birthmother’s point of view. The author’s personal approach–her identification with the characters and their situations–makes for lively, fascinating, and distinctive readings…. a significant, pathbreaking book.”
— Margaret Homans, Yale University, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

Enlarge jacket/cover

Google Search Inside

Subjects

• Literary Studies - American Literature
• Media and Communication
• Gender Studies - Women's Studies
• Psychology

BISAC Categories

• Social Science - Women's Studies
• Literary Collections - American/General

Embroidering the Scarlet A

Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film

Janet Mason Ellerby

The first book-length study of changing cultural representations of unwed mothers in American fiction and film, from The Scarlet Letter to Juno

---

Description

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

“Janet Ellerby brings an unusual and highly valuable voice to the field of American literary studies as she surveys representations of ‘fallen’women, birthmothers, and their illegitimate children in American fiction and film, as seen from a birthmother’s point of view. The author’s personal approach–her identification with the characters and their situations–makes for lively, fascinating, and distinctive readings…. a significant, pathbreaking book.”
— Margaret Homans, Yale University, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

Enlarge jacket/cover

Google Search Inside

Subjects

• Literary Studies - American Literature
• Media and Communication
• Gender Studies - Women's Studies
• Psychology

BISAC Categories

• Social Science - Women's Studies
• Literary Collections - American/General

Embroidering the Scarlet A

Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film

Janet Mason Ellerby

The first book-length study of changing cultural representations of unwed mothers in American fiction and film, from The Scarlet Letter to Juno

---

Description

Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the “fallen woman” from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates “out-of-wedlock” motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity.

As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women’s and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy.

“Janet Ellerby brings an unusual and highly valuable voice to the field of American literary studies as she surveys representations of ‘fallen’women, birthmothers, and their illegitimate children in American fiction and film, as seen from a birthmother’s point of view. The author’s personal approach–her identification with the characters and their situations–makes for lively, fascinating, and distinctive readings…. a significant, pathbreaking book.”
— Margaret Homans, Yale University, author of The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility

- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

Enlarge jacket/cover

Google Search Inside

Subjects

• Literary Studies - American Literature
• Media and Communication
• Gender Studies - Women's Studies
• Psychology

BISAC Categories

• Social Science - Women's Studies
• Literary Collections - American/General

Embroidering the Scarlet A

Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film

Janet Mason Ellerby

- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

Embroidering the Scarlet A

Unwed Mothers and Illegitimate Children in American Fiction and Film

Janet Mason Ellerby

- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/6944967/embroidering_the_scarlet_a#sthash.z922XZdh.dpuf

A New Issue of Polemos (2015, Issue 1)

Here is the Table of Contents for Issue 1, 2015, of the journal Polemos (deGruyter). The subject is Shakespeare and the Law.

Pólemos 2015 | Volume 9 | Issue 1

Contents

Focus

Daniela Carpi and Jeanne Gaakeer:

Focus: Shakespeare and the Law 1

François Ost:

Weak Kings and Perverted Symbolism. How Shakespeare Treats the

Doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies 7

Gary Watt:

Free Will and Folly in As You Like It 15

Daniela Carpi:

Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name 37

Andrew J. Majeske:

Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John,

Othello & King Lear 51

Sidia Fiorato:

Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s

Othello 61

Research

John Casey Gooch:

Illegal Search and Seizure, Due Process, and the Rights of the Accused:

The Voices of Power in the Rhetoric of Los Angeles Police Chief

William H. Parker 83

Jeanne Gaakeer:

The Judge’s Voice: Literary and Legal Emblemata 99

Filippo Sgubbi:

Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence 125

Heinz Antor:

Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly

Gang 131

Chiara Battisti:

Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours 157

Paola Carbone and Giuseppe Rossi:

Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout 175

François Ost and Isabelle Ost:

Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway? 199

Book Reviews

Chiara Battisti:

Gary Watt. Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion

and Form 221

Maria Pina Fersini:

José Calvo González. Direito curvo 233

2 Broke Girls and the Talent Agency License

Caroline and Max take on the job of talent agents on the April 27, 2015 episode of 2 Broke Girls in "2 Broke  Girls and the Look of the Irish."  They decide to try to help newly hired Nash (Austin Falk) become a model (and they'll pocket some cash in exchange). There's only one problem: the episode gives no indication that either one of the members of our dynamic business duo is licensed under state law to represent talent in the state of New York.  Under New York law, one needs a license to act as a talent agent. See Article 11 of the NY General Business Law, which applies to those representing actors and models, among other clients.

Under Article 11, Section 171:

    2. a. "Employment agency" means any person  (as  hereinafter  defined)
  who, for a fee, procures or attempts to procure:
    (1)  employment  or  engagements  for  persons  seeking  employment or
  engagements, or
    (2) employees for employers seeking the services of employees.
    b. "Employment  agency"  shall  include  any  person  engaged  in  the
  practice  of  law  who  regularly  and  as part of a pattern of conduct,
  directly or indirectly, recruits, supplies, or  attempts  or  offers  to
  recruit  or  supply,  an  employee  who  resides outside the continental
  United States (as defined in section one hundred eighty-four-a  of  this
  article)  for  employment  in  this  state  and  who  receives  a fee in
  connection with the arrangement for the admission into this  country  of
  such workers for employment.
    c.  "Employment  agency"  shall  include  any  person  who, for a fee,
  renders vocational guidance or counselling services and who directly  or
  indirectly:
    (1)  procures or attempts to procure or represents that he can procure
  employment or engagements for persons seeking employment or engagements;
    (2) represents that he has access, or has the capacity to gain access,
  to jobs not otherwise available to those not purchasing his services; or
    (3) provides information or service of any kind purporting to promote,
  lead to or result in employment for  the  applicant  with  any  employer
  other than himself.

...

   3. "Fee" means  anything  of  value,  including  any  money  or  other
  valuable  consideration  charged,  collected, received, paid or promised
  for any service, or act rendered or to  be  rendered  by  an  employment
  agency,  including  but  not limited to money received by such agency or
  its emigrant agent which  is  more  than  the  amount  paid  by  it  for
  transportation,  transfer  of baggage, or board and lodging on behalf of
  any applicant for employment.
    4. "Agency manager" means the person designated by the applicant for a
  license who is responsible  for  the  direction  and  operation  of  the
  placement  activities  of  the  agency  at  the  premises covered by the
  license.
    5. "Placement employee"  shall  mean  any  agency  manager,  director,
  counsellor,  interviewer,  or any other person employed by an employment
  agency  who  spends  a  substantial  part  of  his  time   interviewing,
  counselling  or  conferring  with  job  applicants  or employers for the
  purpose of placing or procuring job applicants, but  shall  not  include employees  of an employment agency who are primarily engaged in clerical occupations.

...
7.  "Person"  means  any  individual,  company,  society, association,
  corporation, manager, contractor,  subcontractor,  partnership,  bureau,
  agency, service, office or the agent or employee of the foregoing.
    8.  "Theatrical  employment  agency"  means  any person (as defined in
  subdivision seven of this section) who procures or attempts  to  procure
  employment  or engagements for an artist, but such term does not include
  the business of managing entertainments, exhibitions or performances, or
  the artists or attractions constituting the same,  where  such  business
  only incidentally involves the seeking of employment therefor.
    8-a.  "Artist"  shall  mean actors and actresses rendering services on
  the legitimate stage and in the production  of  motion  pictures,  radio
  artists, musical artists, musical organizations, directors of legitimate
  stage, motion picture and radio productions, musical directors, writers,
  cinematographers,  composers,  lyricists,  arrangers,  models, and other
  artists and persons rendering professional services in  motion  picture,
  theatrical, radio, television and other entertainment enterprises. 
    9.  "Theatrical  engagement"  means any engagement or employment of an
  artist.

Continuing with Section 172:

  License  required. No person shall open, keep, maintain, own,
  operate or carry on any employment agency unless such person shall  have
  first  procured  a  license  therefor  as provided in this article. Such
  license shall be issued by the commissioner of labor, except that if the
  employment agency is to be conducted  in  the  city  of  New  York  such
  license  shall be issued by the commissioner of consumer affairs of such
  city. Such license shall be  posted  in  a  conspicuous  place  in  said
  agency.

Boldface added by the editor of the L & H Blog (ahem, me).

True, Nash refers to Caroline as his "manager" at one point in the episode. If Caroline and Max actually act as Nash's personal managers, then NY law does not require them to obtain talent agent licenses under the "incidental employment" exception (Section 171 (8)) but they cannot "procure employment" for him. Their behavior in the episode indicates that they are not doing so "incidentally." They go to an audition with him purposefully (although they leave when they discover the audition is for a sexually explicit film). When a friend of their new employer indicates she wants to hire Nash as a model, Caroline eagerly demonstrates that she wants to take the businesswoman up on that offer. Caroline (and Max) probably are not pursuing employment for Nash incidentally. They have a goal in mind: finding modelling work for Nash. For that, they need to be licensed as talent agents.

On "incidental" representation, see Section 171(8) above and Mandel v. Liebman, 303 N.Y. 88 (1951) (plaintiff attorney sued defendant author, because defendant refused to pay plaintiff commissions agreed upon in contract, arguing contract by which defendant employed plaintiff to represent him as personal manager was void because plaintiff was not licensed as talent agent under NY law).

A Symposium On Richard Delgado's Legacy

Kevin R. Johnson, University of California, Davis, School of Law, is publishing Richard Delgado's Quest for Justice for All in Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice (2015). Here is the abstract.

This is a contribution to a symposium celebrating Richard Delgado’s illustrious career in law teaching. This commentary offers some thoughts on Delgado’s contributions to pushing the boundaries of Critical Race Theory – and legal scholarship generally – in seeking to create a more just society. This ambitious program has been the overarching theme to his scholarly agenda throughout his career.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

The Lawyer/Novelist

Some lawyers turn to writing fiction to express themselves in a form different from the one they use in every day life (no snark, please, we're serious). The National Law Journal profiles a number of them, including Allan Topol, Douglas Wood, and Scott Turow, in this interesting article (registration required, free).

Mr. Turow points out that writing fiction is difficult, and requires work. He notes that some colleagues have mentioned that they wish they had followed in his footsteps. He has reminded them that writing takes training and perseverance (and, we would add, talent). Not everyone can create the kind of world he has in his wonderful novels Presumed Innocent and Reversible Errors, or the view of law school he gave us in One-L. Even among lawyer-novelists, those like Mr. Turow are rarities.

A Very Sweet Avocation

Robert W. Sweet has been an ice skater for 20 years. That's not as long as he has been a federal judge, but we're not counting. We're just admiring his willingness to acquire additional expertise, especially in such an unusual area such as this one. According to Judge Sweet, there are analogies between judging and skating, including "pay[ing] attention to detail." He opines that "It doesn’t make me a better judge or anything like that, but working hard at anything makes you better.”

Judge Sweet is definitely a wonderful addition to our category of lawyers who have "figured" out what else you can do with a law degree.  More here from the New York Times.

The Politics of Fair Use

Justin Hughes, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, has published Fair Use and Its Politics - At Home and Abroad in Copyright Law in the Age of Exceptions and Limitations (Ruth Okediji, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2015). Here is the abstract.

The manuscript explores how U.S. fair use – a “standard” in a world of statutory copyright rules – has become an arena of ideological struggle over IP policy.

At the international level, this debate frequently plays out in terms of how 17 U.S.C. 107 complies with or fails the “three-step test” of Berne and TRIPS. This manuscript reasons that asking whether section 107 complies with the three-step test is asking the wrong question: section 107 structure is not an exception – it is a mechanism to establish particular exceptions. When the fair use doctrine works properly, it produces discrete de facto exceptions, such as parody following Campbell or intermediate copying in the software context following Sega and Connectix. Section 107 is almost certainly ‘compliant’ with the three-step test; it is particular applications of the doctrine that might attacked in the future as failing the three step test.

The manuscript also describes how fair use has proliferated – in different permutations – to other jurisdictions, including Singapore, South Korea Sri Lanka, and Israel, as well as to more recent international agreements.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Abraham Lincoln as Constitutional Interpreter

Michael Stokes Paulsen, University of St. Thomas School of Law, has published The Great Interpreter as University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-09. Here is the abstract.

This essay examines the constitutional legacy of President Abraham Lincoln, the most important constitutional interpreter in our nation's history. The Civil War was -- in addition to so much else -- a defining act of national constitutional interpretation. The war was fought over fundamental questions of the Constitution's meaning, and over who would have final authority to determine that meaning. The most significant issues of antebellum constitutional dispute -- the present and future status of slavery; the question of who possessed constitutional power to determine that status; the nature of the "Union" and the question of whether a state lawfully could secede; matters of national-versus-state constitutional supremacy and "sovereignty" -- received their final "adjudication" not in any court of law but on the battlefields of the Civil War. It was the case of Grant v. Lee, reduced to final judgment at Appomattox Court House 150 years ago, that constituted the nation's determination of these issues, and that determined also the entire constitutional future of the United States. None of this would have happened had Lincoln not considered himself bound by his oath to advance his independent constitutional views concerning Dred Scott, slavery, Union, national constitutional supremacy, and presidential military powers -- views that frequently placed him at odds not only with the views of nearly half the nation, but often with the Supreme Court as well.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Legal Storytelling In the Law School Curriculum

Judith Beverly Moran, University of Baltimore School of Law, has published Course on Storytelling in volume 49 of the University of San Francisco Law Review (2015). Here is the abstract.

The law and literature movement has a long and distinguished history and has spawned many strands since its origins in the eighteenth century. Most recently, legal storytelling has realized a prominent position in law school pedagogy; it is seen as a way to teach law students effective strategies for client advocacy. Storytelling acumen enables lawyers to present their clients’ circumstances to legal decision makers in ways that can facilitate favorable outcomes. What is less well-settled is how best to teach storytelling skills in law school. Some scholars are proponents of a theoretical approach — teaching students narrative theory and the rudiments of literary criticism — while others prefer practical methods founded in clinical courses. This article proposes a two-pronged approach to teach storytelling in a family law context utilizing both theory and practice. It features critical analysis of literary texts to expose persuasive narrative techniques and writing exercises designed to help students apply them to lawyering.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Examining and Defending Religious Liberty

Harry G. Hutchison, George Mason University School of Law, has published Metaphysical Univocity and the Immanent Frame: Defending Religious Liberty in a Secular Age? as George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 15-13. Here is the abstract.

This article is the first installment of three articles. This article examines and appropriates concepts such as metaphysical univocity (a scheme initiated by John Duns Scotus and enriched by insights proffered by Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā) and then considers the immanent frame as part of my defense of religious liberty. The second installment applies my defense to current controversies in the United States. The third installment utilizes ideas and concepts from the first two articles as part of a comparative study of religious liberty in Turkey wherein I considers the status of religious minorities within Turkey’s borders. This tri-part study is sparked by the contention that:

The freedom to practice one's chosen faith is of vital importance to the United States. It was a quest for religious freedom that motivated many of America's founders, and this remains fundamental to [the United States]. As President Obama said in 2010, "The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in [our] country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are." Today, throughout the world and indeed even here in the [Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe] (OSCE), governments and societies are struggling with rising religious diversity even as they are called upon to protect the fundamental rights of individuals in all communities who seek to practice their own religious beliefs.

As [former] Secretary Clinton put it, "religious freedom provides a cornerstone for every healthy society." The right to believe or not to believe, and to practice one’s convictions without fear of government interference or restriction, is a basic human right. Today, religious freedom is restricted in ways both overt and subtle in too many countries, including participating States. [Ambassador Ian Kelly, United States Mission to the OSCE, Delivered at the OSCE (March 3, 2011).]

The first installment of this project shows there are, indeed, grounds for pessimism regarding the fate of religious liberty in both the Latin West and the United States.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

The American Jury System

Richard Lempert, University of Michigan Law School, is publishing The American Jury System: A Synthetic Overview in the Chicago-Kent Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This essay, originally written for a Swiss volume, and revised with added material for publication in the Chicago Kent Law Review, is intended to provide in brief compass a review of much that is known about the American jury system, including the jury's historical origins, its political role, controversies over its role and structure, its performance, both absolutely and in comparison to judges and mixed tribunals, and proposals for improving the jury system. The essay is informed throughout by 50 years of research on the jury system, beginning with the 1965 publication of Kalven and Zeisel's seminal book, The American Jury. The political importance of the jury is seen to lie more in the jury's status as a one shot decision maker largely independent of trial court bureaucracies than in its ability to nullify the law. Despite flaws in the jury process and room for improvement, the message that emerges from the literature is that juries take their job seriously and for the most part perform well. There is little reason to believe that replacing jury trials with bench trials or mixed tribunals would improve the quality of American justice, and some reason to think it might harm it.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

A Review of Gerald Postema's Legal Philosophy In the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World

Michael Sevel, University of Sydney Faculty of Law, is publishing Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Here is the abstract.

A review essay (forthcoming in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews) critically discussing Gerald Postema’s Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World (Springer, 2011). The book is an invaluable contribution to the history of the philosophy of law, and sheds light on the state of the field in the early twenty-first century.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

New Group To Take Over Putting On Stage Version of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Just days after the Monroe County Historical Museum announced that it would not longer be producing the stage version of To Kill a Mockingbird, news has surfaced that a newly formed nonprofit group may be working its way toward putting on the play beginning next year. More here from the Associated Press, here from the BBC, which reports that Harper Lee, author of the novel, is leading the nonprofit, called the Mockingbird Company. Link here to the group's Facebook page.

Monroeville, AL, No Longer To Put On "To Kill a Mockingbird" After This Year

The Monroe County Heritage Museum, of Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee's home town, which has produced the stage version of To Kill a Mockingbird for nearly 30 years, apparently will no longer put on a production after this year. Museum director Tom Lomerick told his board yesterday that Dramatic Publishing Company, which handles licensing for the rights owner, Christopher T. Serger, has terminated the agreement with the Museum. Many people come to Monroeville every year to attend performances of the play, and Mr. Lomerick estimates that the town earns around $1 million a year in revenues from this tourism.

Dramatic Publishing Company has indicated it will grant rights to put on the play to a group in Kentucky.  More here from the New York Times, here from Al.com.

Art for Corporate Lawyers

Jay A. Mitchell, Stanford Law School, has published Sketch Pad as Legal Pad: Picturing Corporate Practice. Here is the abstract.

This paper is about practicing corporate law. It offers some ways of thinking about the core professional tasks of advice development and deal planning, and about the products corporate lawyers make for those purposes. The paper also suggests a practical technique — sketching — for gaining traction on the analysis and communication at the core of the practice. The sketching discussion draws on the extensive literature in cognitive science, psychology, engineering, architecture, and design about sketching, cognition, and collaboration. The paper is not in conventional form; it is written in an informal style, and makes extensive use of graphics. The content, format, and style reflect the fact that the paper is designed as a resource for law students and new corporate lawyers, and as a possible source of teaching ideas for classroom and clinical instructors.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Visit Shakespeare's London On His Birthday

Some University of Victoria (BC) researchers have recreated Will Shakespeare's London just in time for his birthday--his 451st birthday. They used a version from 1561 and have put it online here.

The site (MoEML for Map of Early Modern London) provides a great deal of additional information, including an encyclopedia and library of information. More here from CBCNews. Happy birthday, Will!

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Special Issue: After Equality

Now available via Project MUSE

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue Femmes et Droit

Volume 27, Number 1, April 2015 

Special Issue: After Equality / Après l'égalité

http://bit.ly/cjwl271pm

Introduction: After Equality

Robert Leckey, Régine Tremblay              

Introduction : Après l'égalité

Robert Leckey, Régine Tremblay              

D'un mythe à l'autre : de l'ignorance des lois à la présomption du choix éclairé chez les conjoints en union libre

Hélène Belleau

Nouvelles normativités de la famille : la garde partagée au Québec, en France et en Belgique

Denyse Côté, Florina Gaborean

Vulnerability, Equality, and Animals

Maneesha Deckha         

Comprendre le besoin de reconnaissance légale en matière de pluriparentalité : pistes de réflexion à partir des coparentalités gaies et lesbiennes

Cathy Herbrand               

Surrogates in Quebec: The Good, the Bad, and the Foreigner

Régine Tremblay             

Cohabitation Reform in England and Wales: Equality or Equity

Simone Wong   

               

Book Reviews / Chroniques bibliographiques

Elizabeth A. Sheehy, ed., Sexual Assault in Canada: Law, Legal Practice and Women's Activism, reviewed by Doris Buss and Jennifer Koshan

Robert Leckey, ed., After Legal Equality: Family, Sex, Kinship, reviewed by Darren Rosenblum

Submission Information

The CJWL/RFD is Canada's oldest feminist legal periodical. Since it began in 1985, the journal has provided a forum in which feminist writers from diverse backgrounds, speaking from a wide range of experience, can exchange ideas and information about legal issues that affect women. We are looking to build on this tradition and remain committed to reflecting a diversity of political, social, cultural, and economic thinking, unified by a shared interest in law reform.

We invite submissions from people who are engaged in feminist analysis of socio-legal issues that reflect a range of approaches, including multidisciplinary, action-focused, theoretical, and historical, and that reflect linguistic and regional differences in Canada. We particularly encourage submissions authored by women from different backgrounds, disciplines and jurisdictions who are doing new feminist work.

The CJWL/RFD is seeking papers for publication in the following sections of the CJWL/RFD: articles, review essays, commentaries, case comments, research notes, book reviews, and notes on Canadian and International events of interest to our readers. Comments on previously published materials are also welcome. The journal is a refereed publication.

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue Femmes et Droit is available online at:

CJWL Online - http:// bit.ly/cjwlonline

Project MUSE - http:// bit.ly/cjwl_pm