Gardner on Why Law Isn't Jazz: A Response @UBSchoolofLaw @buffalolawrev

James A. Gardner, University at Buffalo Law School, has published Why Law Isn't Jazz: A Response, at 71 Buffalo Law Review The Docket D1. Here is the abstract.

In a recent article, Professor William Buzbee argues that “a richer understanding of the nature of law is possible through comparative, analogical examination of legal work and the art of jazz improvisation.” I argue here, from the perspective of someone who is both a lawyer and a jazz pianist, that jazz improvisation and law are best thought of as distinct practices, and that the analogy obscures more than it reveals. Both law and jazz demand that their practitioners make choices within disciplinary constraints, but the disciplinary boundaries of jazz impose far fewer constraints on its practitioners than the boundaries of legal practice. As a result, lawyers who try to incorporate techniques of jazz improvisation into their legal practice will likely be making a disciplinary mistake, and risk practicing law badly to the extent they do so. On the other hand, the fact that jazz musicians operate under fewer professional constraints does not mean that their work is any more creative or original than the work of lawyers, or that jazz’s loftiest artistic aspirations entitle it to be held in higher regard. The deflating truth is that what jazz improvisation principally shares with the practice of law is not so much the inherent possibility of disciplinary creativity, but the quotidian reality of professional drudgery. Most jazz, like most law, is plodding and mediocre, and the intentional production of novelty is exceedingly rare in both practices. In the end, I argue, criticisms of law and judicial decisions are best and most usefully launched from within the relevant disciplinary practice, not from the perspective of other disciplines.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Link to William W. Buzbee, Jazz Improvisation and the Law: Constrained Choice, Sequence, and Strategic Movement Within Rules, 2023 Ill. L. Rev. 151 (2023).

Stanchi on The Rhetoric of Rape Through the Lens of Commonwealth v. Berkowitz @BoydLawUNLV

Kathryn Stanchi, University of Nevada, Law Vegas, School of Law, is publishing The Rhetoric of Rape Through the Lens of Commonwealth v. Berkowitz in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. Here is the abstract.

United States law and culture have yet to find a constructive and fair way to talk about rape, especially in “non-paradigmatic” rape cases like acquaintance or date rape. Particularly on college campuses, acquaintance rape is an ongoing, severe problem. Leading legal minds disagree sharply on how to address it. In part, this polarizing debate stems from our collective inability to free our language of the myths and stock stories that plague the subject of rape. No court case better exemplifies the problem than the notorious decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Berkowitz, one of the most widely taught rape cases in the United States. In his empirical study of attitudes on rape, Professor Dan Kahan used the Berkowitz facts in part because they are such an iconic representation of some of the more difficult and troubling issues surrounding acquaintance rape. In that study, Kahan concluded that whether people perceive a story as describing “rape” depends primarily on cultural cognition, meaning the cultural group to which the reader of the story belongs. The text and substance of the law’s definition of rape mattered little. Kahan concluded that if we wish to change outcomes in rape cases, the cultural understandings of rape, more than the law, must change. This essay takes Kahan’s conclusion that cultural understanding is the primary driver of rape outcomes and asks the question: from where does that cultural understanding come? In no small part, this essay argues, those cultural beliefs come from the law, particularly from legal narratives. The facts of judicial opinions reflect the judges’ cultural understanding of rape and then that cultural understanding becomes what rape is (and isn’t). That image of rape then powerfully influences cultural understanding within and outside of law. It is a recursive process by which legal narratives create and reinforce cultural understanding which then itself creates and reinforces legal narratives and so on in an endless loop. In this way, law is neither irrelevant nor innocent in the outcome of rape cases. It is just exerting its influence, often imperceptibly, through rhetoric.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Edmonds on Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration @UMichLaw @nulawreview

Mira Edmonds, University of Michigan Law School, is publishing Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration in the Northeastern University Law Review. Here is the abstract.

The movement to decarcerate risks foundering because of its failure to grapple with so-called “violent offenders,” who make up nearly half of U.S. prisoners. The treatment of people serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent is a primary reason for the continued problem of mass incarceration, despite widespread awareness of the phenomenon and significant bipartisan interest in its reduction. People convicted of “violent offenses” are serving historically anomalous and excessively long sentences, are generally denied clemency and compassionate release, and are excluded from a wide array of legal reform and policy changes with decarceral aims. Keeping these people in prison for life or near life sentences is extraordinarily expensive for state budgets, largely unnecessary from a public safety perspective, and cruel and unusual punishment from the viewpoint of international and historical standards. While the moral imperative to release those serving draconian sentences for nonviolent drug offenses is widely if not universally accepted, such efforts will ultimately be a drop in the bucket if we fail to address the 58% of state prisoners who are serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent. Quantitative data about the low rates of recidivism for people released after serving long sentences for violent offenses will not alone shift the focus of our policies or politics. Rather, we need to develop a more nuanced understanding of violent offenses and violent offenders by hearing the voices of people who have been directly impacted by violence and by the system’s response to violence. These are, in many cases, the same people. Their stories are complex and human, defying simplistic narratives about innocent victims and bad offenders. Storytelling offers possibilities for reconceptualizing the stale terminology around violence and for shifting the discourse. This Article draws on insights from the literature on epistemic injustice and criminal law democratization, together with the legal storytelling literature. It explores the power of storytelling as an advocacy tool in the slow work of person-by-person decarceration during back-end processes like clemency, parole, and compassionate release, as well as part of the broader movement for systemic decarceration. Storytelling is an important tool for advocates working within the system, as well as for abolitionists seeking to end the system. In some contexts, advocates and activists are best situated to tell these stories, but ultimately people should be given the opportunity and tools to tell their own stories.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Baumgartner on The Meaning of "Reasonable": Evidence From a Corpus-Linguistic Study @UZH_ch @kneer @kevin_tobia @CambridgeUP

Lucien Baumgartner and Markus Kneer, both of the University of Zurich, Institute of Philosophy, are publishing The Meaning of ‘Reasonable’: Evidence From a Corpus-Linguistic Study in The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence (Kevin P. Tobia, ed., Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming). Here is the abstract.

The reasonable person standard is key to both Criminal Law and Torts. What does and does not count as reasonable behavior and decision-making is frequently deter- mined by lay jurors. Hence, laypeople’s understanding of the term must be considered, especially whether they use it predominately in an evaluative fashion. In this corpus study based on supervised machine learning models, we investigate whether laypeople use the expression ‘reasonable’ mainly as a descriptive, an evaluative, or merely a value-associated term. We find that ‘reasonable’ is predicted to be an evaluative term in the majority of cases. This supports prescriptive accounts, and challenges descriptive and hybrid accounts of the term—at least given the way we operationalize the latter. Interestingly, other expressions often used interchangeably in jury instructions (e.g. ‘careful,’ ‘ordinary,’ ‘prudent,’ etc), however, are predicted to be descriptive. This indicates a discrepancy between the intended use of the term ‘reasonable’ and the understanding lay jurors might bring into the court room.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Williams on Making a Mother: The Supreme Court and the Constitutive Rhetoric of Motherhood @BYULaw

Lucy Williams, Brigham Young University Law School, is publishing Making a Mother: The Supreme Court and the Constitutive Rhetoric of Motherhood in volume 102 of the North Carolina Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Many scholars study Supreme Court decisions, but few are attentive to the rhetoric the Court uses to articulate its holdings. This omission is perplexing: The Court’s rhetoric literally becomes law, but scholars typically fixate on the substance, rather than the rhetoric, of its communications. In this paper, I argue that legal scholars should take more seriously the Court’s role as a rhetorical actor. To illustrate this, I analyze the rhetorical effects of the language the Court uses to describe women and mothers in three contexts: gender discrimination, immigration, and abortion. I begin describing the “inherited language” of motherhood—that is, the narratives, themes, and connotations that are traditionally associated with the idea of motherhood. I then use close readings and discourse analysis of landmark decisions in each substantive area to consider whether and how the Supreme Court engages with that inherited language. My analysis reveals that the Court’s relationship with the inherited language of motherhood varies across contexts. In cases dealing with gender discrimination, the Court anxiously distances itself from traditional narratives about motherhood. In immigration cases, it both embraces and rejects the inherited language. And in abortion cases, its approach has shifted: Initially, the Court strongly disavowed inherited narratives, but in its most recent abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it says very little about mothers at all. My analysis also reveals that the Court’s attitude toward the inherited language of motherhood is often correlated with the substantive legal outcome in a case: In decisions that are more protective of women and their rights, the Court generally rejects the inherited language, but in decisions that are less protective of women’s legal rights, it relies on inherited narratives more frequently. These findings illustrate why legal scholars should be more attentive to the Supreme Court’s rhetoric. The correlation between the Court’s language and substantive outcomes suggests that in some cases, the Court’s rhetorical decisions might influence or even determine its legal analysis. If that is true, then scholars who are interested in case outcomes should study the Court’s language. But the Court’s rhetoric does not just shape case outcomes; it also alters the way we understand, engage with, and view one another. When the Court uncritically invokes traditional narratives and about women and mothers, it may—for better or for worse—perpetuate and reconstitute a world where those outdated assumptions govern. When it actively distances itself from traditional narratives, as it does in gender discrimination cases and early abortion cases, it creates legal and rhetorical space for women to enact various modes of motherhood and womanhood. And when the Court ignores the inherited language of motherhood, it frames legal debates as if women’s interests are not at stake and conceal and, in doing so, obscures women’s perspectives, needs, and lived experiences. Scholars interested in the ways law shapes relationships and facilitates identity formation should pay attention to these constitutive effects.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

McMahon on Canada's Laws of White Supremacy

Thomas McMahon has published Canada’s Laws of White Supremacy: 1496-1791. Here is the abstract.

Is it permitted to say "white supremacy" when discussing Canada's foundational documents and archives? The purpose of this research paper is to identify the key legal documents establishing white supremacy as the foundational doctrine of Canada's legal history. If you refuse to name the problem, you can't begin to solve it.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Hylton on Originalism, Official History, and Perspectives versus Methodologies @BU_Law

Keith N. Hylton, Boston University School of Law, has published Originalism, Official History, and Perspectives versus Methodologies as Boston Univ. School of Law Research Paper No. 23-34. Here is the abstract.

This paper addresses a well-worn topic: originalism, the theory that judges should interpret the Constitution in a manner consistent with the intent of its framers. I am interested in the real-world effects of originalism. The primary effect advanced by originalists is the tendency of the approach to constrain the discretion of judges. However, another effect of originalism that I identify is the creation of official histories, a practice that imposes a hidden tax on society. Another question I consider is whether originalism should be considered a methodology of analyzing the law or a perspective on the law. I argue that originalism is closer to a perspective than a methodology.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Manning and Gayle on Enslavement in a Free Country: Legalized Exploitation of Native Americans and African Americans in Early California and the Post-Emancipation South @TheJLPE

Beth Rose Middleton Manning and Steven Gayle are publishing Enslaved in a Free Country: Legalized Exploitation of Native Americans and African Americans in Early California and the Post-Emancipation South in volume 3 of the Journal of Law and Political Economy (2022). Here is the abstract.

In 1850, California joined the United States as a free state. However, one of its first laws, the 1850 Law for the Government and Protection of Indians, legalized the enslavement of California Indians. Drawing comparisons between early Californian and Southern statutes that maintained racialized political economies, we argue that the institutionalized oppression perpetrated against Native Americans in California bears important legal similarities to that perpetrated against African Americans in the South, both before and after Reconstruction. This similarity is not a coincidence; the presence of both African and Native American populations in Southern legislation, the movement of Southerners to the West to participate in California’s development, the regional history of Mexican and Spanish systems of Indigenous enslavement, and a political economy reliant on racialized underpaid or unpaid labor, all created the conditions for California to legally retain de facto systems of slavery in a context of de jure freedom.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

(Note that the SSRN entry lists the co-authors as Middleton Manning, Beth Rose, and Steven Gayle.--Ed.)

ICYMI: Sherwin on The Narrative Construction of Legal Reality @RKSherwin @NYLawSchool @VTLawReview

ICYMI: Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School, has published The Narrative Construction of Legal Reality at 18 Vt. L. Rev. 681 (1994). Here is the abstract.

If reality and meaning depend, to a significant extent, on perceptual and cognitive constructions, it becomes of no small interest to learn what interpretive frameworks are at work in specific legal contexts. One way to express this inquiry is to ask: what kinds of stories, and what modes of storytelling, are being used by lawyers, judges, and others within the legal system to construct and convey meaning? This path of inquiry leads to a heightened awareness of competing rhetorics and strategies of narration. Such awareness may operate on the plane of broad principle and decontextualized abstraction or on the level of local voices, proper names, and particularized dramas.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

ICYMI: Williams on Blasting Reproach and All-Pervading Light: Frederick Douglass's Aspirational American Exceptionalism @BYULaw

ICYMI: Lucy Williams, Brigham Young University Law School, has published Blasting Reproach and All-Pervading Light: Frederick Douglass’s Aspirational American Exceptionalism at 9 American Political Thought 369 (2020). Here is the abstract.

Some scholars critique American exceptionalism as a proud, uncritical orientation. In this article, however, I argue that Frederick Douglass, an outspoken social critic, qualifies as an American exceptionalist thinker. I first identify and theorize two modes of exceptionalist rhetoric: accomplished exceptionalism, which is self-celebratory and largely uncritical, and aspirational exceptionalism, which is self-critical and reflective. I then provide a close reading of “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” to show how Douglass employs aspirational rhetorical techniques. Finally, I discuss the benefits of reading Douglass as an exceptionalist thinker and suggest that his aspirational rhetoric activates reflective and progressive modes of American citizenship.

The full text is not available for download from SSRN.

Call For Papers: International Conference on Constitutional Communities, KU Leuven, Belgium

 

CFP From Roger Ventura Cossin, KU Leuven:

Call for Papers

International conference on

Constitutional Communities

 

       When: 8-9 February 2024

       Where: KU Leuven (Institute of Philosophy and Faculty of Law), Belgium

       Deadline for abstract submissions: 25 October 2023 

 

Theme:

Today almost all countries are “constitutional communities” in a broad sense: their constitution provides the basic framework for their common life. This link between community and constitution is increasingly recognized and there is a growing awareness of the potential of constitutions for societal integration. Jürgen Habermas, with his notion of constitutional patriotism, made the case for a collective identity that does not rely on ethnic nationalism. At the same time, the belief that a constitutional document can be the source of a liberal collective identity has been criticized from various angles. A constitution is typically anchored at the national level, while in a globalized world social integration happens at many different levels. Moroever, courts have used the concept of “constitutional identity” to justify divergent interpretations of the rule of law and human rights and to uphold populist claims. Indigenous people sometimes see constitutional recognition as a new form of assimilation. And some critics have claimed that the concept is empty and abstract: constitutional principles are mostly the same across borders so how can they inspire a sense of community?

 

These developments raise important questions. How do constitutions create communities? Can they really do so? And should they? These questions can be answered from different disciplinary perspectives. Scholars in constitutional law and in the history of law have studied the working of constitutions since long. But legal and political philosophy should also weigh in, as philosophers from the past and the present have amply studied the relation between written laws and community. The issue of constitutional identity can also be approached from an empirical sociological perspective or even from a literary perspective, as it is ultimately the agency of a text that is at stake here. 

 

By engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue about constitutions and community, this conference aims to explore the impact that constitutions have and can have in the functioning of communities, and to contribute to our understanding of the concept of constitutional identity.

 

Possible paper topics: 

- Constitutions and community building

- National and/or constitutional identity as legal instruments 

- The relation between constitutional identity and affiliated notions (sovereignty, constituent power, representation, …) 

- Constitutional recognition (of minorities, historically oppressed groups, rights of nature, …)

- Constitutional change 

- Specific philosophers on the role of constitutions 

- Constitutions as a literary genre

 

Submitting your abstract:

If you are interested in presenting your work at this conference, please submit an anonymized abstract (max. 400 words, in .doc, .docx or .pdf format) along with your name, title, and affiliation via e-mail to Ana Van Liedekerke (ana.vanliedekerke@kuleuven.be). The actual presentations can be 15 to 20 minutes long. Abstract should be submitted on 25 October 2023 (CET) at the latest. If accepted, you will be invited to develop your abstract into a full paper of around 5000 words; papers will be precirculated to all conference participants. We welcome submissions both from junior and from senior scholars. We especially encourage scholars from underrepresented groups to apply.

 

Conference Fee: There will be a registration fee of 75 euro to participate in the conference (40 euro for those attending just one day and reduced prices for KU Leuven students) and an additional fee of 75 euro for those wanting to attend the conference dinner.

 

Organizers: Raf Geenens, Stefan Sottiaux, Christophe Maes, Roger Ventura Cossin, Ana Van Liedekerke.

 

This conference is organized by RIPPLE (Research in Political Philosophy and Ethics Leuven) and the Leuven Centre for Public Law. It is part of an interdisciplinary research project on constitutional identity, jointly hosted by KU Leuven's Institute of Philosophy and KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and funded by FWO, the Research Foundation Flanders.

 

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le Dret on Freedom of Testation in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Legislation @MPIPRIV

Valentin Pinel le Dret, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, has published Freedom of Testation in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Legislation at 140 Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Germanistische Abteilung (ZRG GA) 278 (June 2023). Here is the abstract.

Contrary to what one could have deduced from art. 2 and 17 of the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, where property had been elevated as a natural right, imprescriptible, inviolable, and sacred, and art. 537 and 544 of the Code civil, where the owners had been given the right to use in the most absolute way and dispose freely of their property, neither the Revolutionary nor the Napoleonic lawmakers thought of the right of disposing freely of one’s property upon death as self-evident. Although there had been a long tradition of testamentary succession in the South of France, the right to dispose freely of one’s properties by testament led to tensions as to its articulation with the pro-intestate customs of the Northern provinces – in 1789–1804 French private law(s) had indeed not yet been unified and the unification process had given rise to several rearguard arguments in favour of local idiosyncrasies –, but most importantly, it led to tensions as to its articulation with the institution of family, one of the pillars, along with property, of the new social order that had emerged from the ruins of the Ancien Régime: the bourgeois society. Note: This article is published in the Max Planck Private Law Research Paper Series with the permission of the rights owner, De Gruyter. It is freely accessible on the basis of a licence with an OA-option funded by the MPG, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Booth on Delegitimizing the Supreme Court: The Lessons of Dred Scott @JBooth_history @UCLaw_Quarterly

Jonathon Booth is publishing Delegitimizing the Supreme Court: The Lessons of Dred Scott in volume 51 of the UC Law Constitutional Quarterly. Here is the abstract.

This Article examines how anti-slavery Republicans delegitimized the Supreme Court in the aftermath of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) and compares this history to contemporary attempts to reform the Court or resist its decisions, focusing particular attention on recent cases regarding abortion rights. After Dred Scott was decided, anti-slavery Northerners and Republican politicians immediately attacked the decision as illegitimate dicta, beginning a cycle of delegitimization. As Northerners denounced the decision, Southern states and the federal government began to implement its holdings that Black Americans were not citizens. Arkansas, for example, passed a law expelling all free Black residents of the state. The implementation increased the anger of Northerners and led Northern courts and legislatures to defy the decision openly. Opposition to Dred Scott propelled Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and his administration and the Republican Congress continued the cycle of delegitimization by passing a number of laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that blatantly contradicted Dred Scott’s holdings. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment completed the cycle by formally superseding Dred Scott. This history demonstrates that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy and authority is more tenuous than it appears. The Court’s current legitimacy crisis raises the prospect that a similar cycle of delegitimization could occur today and lead to the repudiation of recent decisions, most notably Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022).

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Frazier on The Next Required Law School Course: History of America's Foundings @StThomasLaw

Kevin Frazier, St. Thomas University School of Law, is publishing The Next Required Law School Course: History of America’s Foundings in volume 54 of St. Mary's Law Journal. Here is the abstract.

The Supreme Court has cited the Federalist Papers hundreds of times to analyze the meaning of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalist Papers, on the other hand, receive few citations in the Court’s opinions. The prevalence of Federalist Paper citations and the dearth of Anti-Federalist references necessitate a similar response from law schools everywhere: a required history class that covers the Founding Era, among other periods. The Court’s citations to the Federalist Papers alone evidence the importance of this era to constitutional law. The prominent role of amicus briefs from historians confirms that importance. But law schools must do more than teach what the advocates for ratifying the Constitution believed it meant. They must also provide students with the tools of historical analysis needed to develop a nuanced understanding of what made the Constitution so revolutionary and how its ratification process revealed important hopes and fears. Law schools should also make the Reconstruction Era a part of that required course. Coined The Second Founding by Eric Foner and others, this era transformed the Constitution through the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and witnessed fundamental changes in the general understanding of “We, the People.” This era’s Congress has been called “the Congress of the Revolution” for its work on civil rights. Supreme Court opinions have hinged on channeling the spirit of these “Reconstruction Amendments” and their accompanying legislation. Similarly, many justices have leaned on the spirit and text of these transformational amendments to ensure their core is preserved. For example, in Maine v. Thiboutot, the Court held that laws from the Reconstruction Era “‘must be given the meaning and sweep’ dictated by ‘their origins and their language’—not their language alone.” It is those “origins” that are unacceptably absent from legal pedagogy. Students must also learn how to analyze and respond to legal arguments grounded in historical analysis. Though students necessarily master a narrow type of historical inquiry, identifying and evaluating precedent, too few students learn how to spot and challenge historically-oriented adjudication that activist judges have used to break from precedent. Fearful of being called out for “law-office history,” courts avoid attempting to ground their decisions in superficial historical analysis. This Article makes a case for the American Bar Association requiring law students to complete a history class on the nation’s two “Foundings.”

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Rohde and Parra-Herrara on Law as Architecture: Mapping Contingency and Autonomy in Twentieth-Century Legal Historiography @DanEricRohde @nicolasparrah @harvard_law @TheJLPE

Dan Rohde and Nicolas Parra-Herrara, both of Harvard Law School, are publishing Law as Architecture: Mapping Contingency and Autonomy in Twentieth-Century Legal Historiography in volume 3 of the Journal of Law and Political Economy. Here is the abstract.

This article addresses the power of law to make historical change. We begin by charting a rich debate on law’s autonomy held over the course of the twentieth century, overviewing contributions by Classical Legal Thought, Law and Society, Marxism, the New Left, Critical Legal History, and what we term the “Millennial Consensus.” We then sketch an alternative view that we feel is implicit in much legal history, where the law is seen as an “architecture”—a set of tools with which we build our society. On this view, law’s autonomy lies in the way that it facilitates specific forms of societal ordering at the expense of others. We emphasize that it also has an existential dimension in that we can never foresee all the future uses particular legal institutions may be put to.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Aydin-Aitchinson on Victims, Perpetrators, and Bystanders: Atrocity and Its Aftermath in the Films of Jasmila Žbanić @UoELawSchool

Andy Aydin-Aitchinson, University of Edinburgh School of Law, has published Victims, perpetrators, and bystanders: Atrocity and its aftermath in the films of Jasmila Žbanić as Edinburgh School of Law Research Paper No. 2023/07. Here is the abstract.

Following cultural and visual criminologists, who explore cinematic representations of victimhood, gender, witnessing, and memory, I excavate the ‘implicit criminologies’ in four films by Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić: Grbavica (2006); Na putu [On the path] (2010); Za one koji ne mogu da govore [For those who can tell no tales] (2013); and Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020). In criminological terms, Žbanić’s work is strongest as an example of cinematic victimology, but also poses important questions around perpetration and bystanders. By noting the films’ potential to encapsulate universal and particular elements and by casting cinematic knowledge as a collective project, I question the need to hold one film or one director to an overly rigid ethical standard of inclusivity.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.