Call For Papers, 27th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law

From Anne Wagner, research Associate Professor, Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (CGU Calais)

Call for Papers – 27th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2027)

The Faculty of Law and Administration at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków is pleased to host the 27th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL) from 30 June – 2 July 2027.

Theme:
Methodology of Semiotics of Law: How and Why We Do It the Way We Do and How Can We Do It Better?

This congress invites scholars to reflect on the methodologies that shape research in the semiotics of law, exploring both established practices and innovative directions for future inquiry. Contributions are welcome on a broad range of topics, including methodological foundations, interdisciplinarity, quantitative and qualitative approaches, relationships with legal theory and sociology, the impact of semiotics of law on legal institutions, and methodological challenges in ongoing research.

📅 Important Dates

• Abstract submission deadline: 15 January 2027
• Notification of acceptance: 15 February 2027
• Congress dates: 30 June – 2 July 2027

📍 Venue
Faculty of Law and Administration, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

📄 Submissions should include:

• Title of the proposed paper
• Abstract (up to 300 words)
• Five keywords
• Author information (affiliation and official email)

Selected papers will be considered for publication in a Special Issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law or in an edited volume.

For full details and submission information, please visit:
https://link.springer.com/journal/11196/updates/52934494

We warmly encourage researchers, academics, and practitioners interested in the semiotics of law to join us in Kraków for this important international gathering.

 

Call For Interest, International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication: From Text to Semiotics, Section 52: Digital Transition of Contemporary Societies and Legal Adaptation

From Anne Wagner, Research Associate Professor, Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale (CGU Calais)

Call for Interests: Section 52 — Digital Transition of Contemporary Societies and Legal Adaptation

 

 

INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF LEGAL LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION: From Text to Semiotics.

 

https://meteor.springer.com/ihllc

 

 

Section Editors: Le Cheng & Ming Hu

 

We invite scholars and practitioners to express their interest in contributing to Section 52: Digital Transition of Contemporary Societies and Legal Adaptation, edited by Le Cheng (chengle163@hotmail.com) and Ming Hu (hm606@zju.edu.cn). This section is part of an expansive Handbook designed as an encyclopedia with nearly 1,000 chapters. Each entry goes beyond a standard encyclopedic summary to offer a substantive and reflective contribution, grounded in existing literature but shaped by the author’s unique research perspective.

 

This section investigates how digital transformation is reshaping contemporary legal systems. It considers how the transition toward digital governance, online commerce, and AI-driven technologies challenges traditional legal structures. By focusing on issues such as digital contracts, e-governance, and automation in the legal field, this section highlights the need for laws that are adaptable to the speed of digital innovation and the societal shift toward a fully integrated digital landscape.

 

Potential topics include:

 

Digital Governance and Law: Exploration of e-government initiatives and the digitization of public services, focusing on the legal frameworks that support digital administration.

Automation in Legal Practice: Impact of AI and digital tools on legal procedures, contracts, and decision-making, including the ethical and regulatory challenges posed by automation.

Digital Contracts and Transactions: The transition from traditional to digital contracts, addressing issues of enforceability, consent, and cross-border legal challenges in e-commerce.

Societal Shifts in Digital Law: The evolving legal landscape as societies transition toward digital living, with a focus on emerging rights, privacy, and security concerns.

Contributions should present established knowledge clearly and accessibly, ideally with a personal angle and an original analytical lens, while maintaining scholarly rigor. The Handbook aims to serve both newcomers and experienced readers alike.

 

If you are interested in contributing to this section, please reach out directly to the section editors by 15 August 2025:

Le Cheng – chengle163@hotmail.com

Ming Hu – hm606@zju.edu.cn

 

We look forward to your engagement in this important and timely conversation.

 

Kahn on The Authoritarian Semiotics of the New Campus Mask Bans

Robert Kahn, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota), has published The Authoritarian Semiotics of the New Campus Mask Bans. Here is the abstract.

Campus protests over the Gaza war have led to calls for mask bans. This essay examines these calls from a semiotic perspective. On the one hand, the new and proposed bans invoke the struggle against the Ku Klux Klan to cast masked protesters as modern-day Klan members. Meanwhile, the bans rely on a dislike of masks dating from the pandemic when mask wearers were seen as “cowardly sheep” who allowed the state to exercise “social control.” Both semiotic strategies fail on their own terms. Mask bans trivialize the history of the Klan, while promoting the same social control mask abstainers complained about during COVID. As such, mask bans reflect “face authoritarianism,” under which the state assumes the power to determine who wears a mask and when. A truly free society would reject this overcriminalization of daily life and respect the right to mask (or not mask) in most settings.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Emojis and the Law

What do emojis mean in text messages and email? See this article by Anna Stolley Persky for more information. 

More about emojis and the law in these articles.

Golriz Chrostowski, Getting Emojis Into Evidence Is No Laughing Matter, Bloomberg Legal Analysis, August 8, 2023.

Marcel Danesi, The Law and Emojis: Emoji Forensics, 34 International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 1117 (2021). 

Eric Goldman, Emojis and the Law, 93 Washington Law Review 1227 (2018). 

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

Kathryn Stanchi, University of Nevada, Las 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.

Annual Semiotics of Law Roundtable, Keele University, July 16-18, 2024

From Mark Featherstone, Professor of Sociology, Keele University:

I am writing to draw your attention to the upcoming 24th Annual Semiotics of Law Roundtable that will be held at Keele University from 16th to 18th July, 2024.

Law in an Age of Permacrisis

‘Permacrisis’ was the word of the year in 2022. By then it had become clear that several interconnected crises had, for decades, not shown any sign of abating. On all levels - local, regional and global - crises seem to have been caught in ever-intensifying spirals. In the spheres of international relations, politics, economics, environmental policy, energy and critical resource/infrastructure, demographic evolution, culture and ideological formation, unpredictability or the sheer unravelling of consistency seem to be spreading through linkages, nodes, and interlocked networks. Reactions and remedies often contributed to the overall instability, leading to a generalised sense of perpetual, unstoppable crisis.

Economic and ecological collapse is easier to imagine than before. This begs the question as to how law operates in an era marked by such a pervasive sense of ‘permacrisis’. Can law operate in what some might perhaps call an age of near entropy? Where and how does law manifest itself in times of continuous crisis? What is the future of law? Will law have to be re-imagined, or has it been re-imagined already? Where and how? The conference invites contributions to these and related questions and themes.

For further details and information relating to registration and fees, please visit the conference website at:

https://www.keele.ac.uk/law-age-permacrisis/

Call For Papers: International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Roundtables

Call for Papers: International Roundtables for the Semiotics of Law--IRSL 2021. The roundtables are scheduled for June 17-18, 2021, online. Frank Fleerackers is the organizer, and the Leuven University Faculty of Law will host the event, which is in honor of Jan M. Broekman's 90th birthday.

More information here.

Ricca on Perpetually Being Astride Eden's Boundaries: The Limits to the "Limits of Law" And the Semiotic Inconsistency of "Legal Enclosures" @AnneWag26082949

Mario Ricca, University of Parma, is publishing Perpetually Astride Eden’s Boundaries: The Limits to the ‘Limits of Law’ and the Semiotic Inconsistency of ‘Legal Enclosures’ in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (2020). Here is the abstract.

Legal systems can be metaphorically taken as semantic and pragmatic enclosures. The ancient world has given us at least three literary loci that display the self-disruptive significance of this kind of metaphor if assumed as a practical guideline in the attempt to steer human experience. The first such loci can be traced in biblical Eden; the second one in the Phaeacian garden described in Homer’s Odyssey; the third in the stories of the first and second mythical Athens included in Plato’s Timaeus and Republic. In all these tales, human beings ineluctably end up straying across the semantic-spatial borders which certain categories and rules have given them to encompass their experience. All these literary loci offer both a semio-cognitive and a constitutional lesson for lawyers and sovereigns. My intention is to exploit these lessons to show that the most relevant limit of legal systems, if taken as semantic and pragmatic enclosures, consists precisely in their inability to constitutively limit themselves and their semiotic borders. This inaptitude is due, in my view, to the semiotic ‘exceedance’ of the phrastic, or descriptive parts of legal rules even more than the semantic vagueness of the values underlying their legitimacy. Any attempt to define the semantic and spatial boundaries of human experience by means of verbal enunciations implies the use of categorical schemes to define the legitimate and/or forbidden behaviors. But categorical schemes, in turn, comprise boundaries that draw protean verges between the inside and the outside of each category. The categorical ‘inside’ compellingly tends to exceed its borders so as to protrude out toward what is outside the category. In turn, the ‘outside’ shows, more often than not, continuities with the axiological/teleological patterns underpinning the semantic boundaries of legal rules. Any attempt to limit the competence/extension of law, if taken in its semantic/spatial significance, would seem to unveil what law could or should be, but is not. Relying on the above literary loci, I will try to demonstrate that this apparently contradictory implication is inherent in the dialectic between equality/universality and difference/plurality that makes up categorization itself, and thereby the semiotic prerequisites to considering any legal rule.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Mignaneilli and Slinger on An Inquiry Into Confederate Symbolism and the Florida State Flag @nmignanelli

Nicholas Mignanelli and Sarah C. Slinger, both of the University of Miami School of Law, are publishing A Matter for Interpretation: An Inquiry into Confederate Symbolism and the Florida State Flag in the University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review (2020). Here is the abstract.

Are the red bars found on Florida’s state flag a remnant of early-twentieth-century nostalgia for the Confederacy? Who first proposed this design and why? What did this change mean to the citizens who witnessed it? This Article is an attempt to answer these questions by approaching them through the lenses of original intent and original meaning. In doing so, the Authors advance new strategies for decision-makers interested in uncovering the motives of those who first erected or affixed allegedly Confederate monuments and symbols.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers: International Journal of Legal Discourse, Special Issue: Semiotic Perspectives on Environment, Forestry, Fishery, Hunting, and Law

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEGAL DISCOURSE SPECIAL ISSUE – SEMIOTIC PERSPECTIVES ON ENVIRONMENT, FORESTRY, FISHERY, HUNTING AND LAW

Guest Editors: Dariusz GWIAZDOWICZ, Aleksandra MATULEWSKA & Anne WAGNER

Environmental issues have bothered people for the last several decades. In some countries, legislation devoted to the protection of endangered species dates back to 15th and 16th century. The modern world is highly urbanized and people get more and more distanced from nature. At the same time, they are more and more aware of the need to protect the natural resources of the Earth. That however, is not always done in accordance with the suggestions of scientists but lobbying groups either pursuing their own goals or simply their vision of the world. The recent case of Greta Thunberg’s popularity is one of the examples of such actions. The child got more attention of politicians and media than any scientist well versed in the field. Celebrities create their image using environmental issues as a popularity stimulator, just to mention one of the first ones who was Bridgit Bardot. The animal rights’ movements take various forms. In some countries farmed animals were released to the wild which affects the environment negatively as invasive species start exerting pressure on local species, depriving them of habitats. The Animal Liberation Front considers such acts legal, whereas they frequently constitute a breach of property law. In the urbanized world we observe that inhabitants of cities lack the knowledge about the tasks of sustainable environment protection and its role in sustainable management of natural resources (frequently leading to stereotyping, cyberbullying); they have specific social expectations which do not take into account the laws of nature but rely on fake news or over-idealized concept of environment; eco-hypocrisy. Another factor affecting our perception of environment is the ubiquitous antropomorphisation of animals as a result of which the wild world is deprived of its real features and becomes humanized (there are even movements propagating giving animals civic rights). In general, contemporary people lack inquisitiveness, are exposed to ubiquitous fake news and media infostrategy striving for scandalous news (Gwiazdowicz 2017, Gwiazdowicz and Matulewska 2020). As a result, two types of ecology have emerged recently: one which is based on scientific foundations and research results and the other one which is the media affected and based on stereotypical, idealized vision of the world. As it turns out, legislators change labels to gain support of eco-hypocrites but the problem of the conflict existing between human expectations and needs and environment remains and must be solved. In the Netherlands the government under the pressure of ecologists banned bird hunting. Though not many people realize that the problem of agricultural damage inflicted by the birds is solved through different means that is to say baby geese are killed by putting them into specially designed gas chambers. The meat of geese is no longer fit for human or animal consumption and must be liquidated. The question may be posed about the semiotic aspect of such actions. In the urbanized world there is and there will be a constant fight between humans who want highways, nice homes with fenced gardens, nice-looking vegetables and fruit, comfortable, healthy lifestyles and environment. Vegetarianism and similar lifestyles are becoming more and more popular as environment- and especially animal-friendly though little attention is placed on the effect of production of plants rich in protein and other valuable nutrients on environment (contamination of groundwaters with pesticides, herbicides, deforestations, deprivation of animals of their habitats). All activities and lifestyles affect the environment but we rarely find reliable sources of information providing a deeper insight into both pros and cons. 

To sum up, all those problems affect legislation regulating environment, forestry, fishery and hunting. The issue opens a new sphere of semiotic analysis of communication in legal settings and adopted solutions. This Special Issue hopes to construe presentations of environment, forestry, fishery and hunting to orientate our vision of legal solutions and their environmental consequences. The aim of this Special issue is to offer broader perspectives for understanding the roles of scientists, lobbyists and legislators in the debate of preserving the nature for future generations from both theoretical and practical angles. Therefore, the papers devoted to the following topics and presenting both advantages and disadvantages are welcome:

1. Animal rights and legislation

2. Animal owners’ rights

3. Environment and law

4. Forestry and law

5. Law and exploitation of nature

6. Consequences of releasing wild animals and plants into the wild and consequential legislation on invasive species

7. Ecology and law

8. Hunting and law

9. Fishery and law

10. Social expectations in the field of environment versus law

11. Poaching

12. Legal and illegal environment protection

13. Cyberbullying of foresters, hunters, fishermen

14. Repealed laws and their replacements

The Special Issue can comprise only 14 papers of no more than 30 pages.

Send your proposal to the three of us: dariusz.gwiazdowicz@up.poznan.pl, aleksandra.matulewska@gmail.com, valwagnerfr@yahoo.com 

Deadline for abstract: 10 February 2021

Decision for inclusion: 30 March 2021

Deadline for full paper: 15 January 2022 (instructions will be sent after decision to include papers in the special issue)

Call For Papers: Special Issue, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law: Heritage, Law and Discourse: A Triadic Dimension in Protection, Regulation & Identity @AnneWag26082949

CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE

 “Heritage, Law and Discourse: A Triadic Dimension in Protection, Regulation & Identity”

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

https://www.springer.com/journal/11196

Guest Editors: Anne Wagner & Cheng Le

The past four decades has witnessed the remarkable extension of enthusiasm in cultural heritage or property from the perspective of international laws, or international legal framework as the multilevel legal instruments for safeguarding, protection and maintenance of cultural heritage, property, or rights. In our project, the identification of “Heritage” employs specific discourses, codes, transcending values, and images that conceal assumption about members of a people comprising a people within a nation. Heritage narrates constructions of belongings that become tethered to negotiations for power and resistance over time and throughout a people’s history leading to powerful discursive narratives. While such likeness may be preserved, conserved or even perpetuated, the idea of “Heritage” may be socially, politically, culturally, and historically contested to reveal competing pasts, presents, and futures, esp. with innovation in arts leading to new social norms and identities.

Besides, the visual decoding of heritage is evocative and ideologically representative with meanings that prescribe a story of Protection, Regulation and Identity, since these meanings are subject to multiple interpretations and reinterpretations related to Rights, among the integrity of heritage right and human rights, and the integrated framework of right in rem and right in personae. Yet, through semiotic accumulation, evolution and confrontation, there may be different interdisciplinary paths leading to different truths, to tensions (contestation and/or negotiation), and applications of significance. We should then investigate these transmitted values, discourses over time and space. 

We should therefore investigate these transmitted values under various perspectives (amongst others but not limited):

- How to transmit Heritage and which values are being transmitted?

- How are the narratives created?

- Is there a social stratification in transmitting, preserving and conserving Heritage?

- What are the cognitive and symbolic aspects of Heritage through different temporal parameters? Is there a shift in cultural and/or collective meaning from one space to another? 

- What are the sources?

- What is the relationship between law and “heritage” (tangible or intangible elements) in visual representations?

- What is the shared collective and/or cultural memory beyond this visual representation?

- How Heritage is connected to the preservation and conservation of a people’s memory?

- How Heritage is interpreted within legal settings or international legal framework from temporality and spatiality?

- What are the interactions between cultural heritage and human rights within the diversity and tolerance within socio-legal contexts?

Considering the complexity and diversity in the building of a common memory or discourse community through tangible and intangible cultural heritage, we would suggest our contributors interrogate the complex sign system of a particular country or region and their meanings attentive to a complex configuration of historical, social and cultural conditions that shift over time and space.

Keywords: Heritage, Sign System, Law, Discourse Narratives, Conservation, Preservation.

Please send your proposal to Anne WAGNER (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com) by late April 2020.

Lloyd on How To Do Things With Signs: Semiotics in Legal Theory, Practice, and Education @LloydEsq

Harold Anthony Lloyd, Wake Forest University School of Law, has published How To Do Things With Signs: Semiotics in Legal Theory, Practice, and Education. Here is the abstract.

Discussing federal statutes, Justice Scalia tells us that “[t]he stark reality is that the only thing that one can say for sure was agreed to by both houses and the president (on signing the bill) is the text of the statute. The rest is legal fiction." How should we take this claim? If we take "text" to mean the printed text, that text without more is just a series of marks. If instead we take "text" (as we must) to refer to something off the page such as the "meaning" of the series of marks at issue, what is that meaning and how do we know that all the legislators "agreed" on that "meaning"? In seeking answers here, we necessarily delve into semiotics (i.e., the “general theory of signs”) by noting that meaningful ink marks ("signifiers) signify a meaning beyond themselves (the "signified.") Thus, understanding how signs function is integral to lawyers' textual and linguistic analysis. Additionally, as this article demonstrates, legal analysis and rhetoric are much impoverished if lawyers ignore nonverbal signs such as icons, indices, and nonverbal symbols. In providing a broad overview of semiotics for lawyers, this article thus (1) begins with a general definition of signs and the related notion of intentionality. It then turns to, among other things, (2) the structure and concomitants of signs in more detail (including the signifier and the signified), (3) the possible correlations of the signifier and the signified that generate signs of interest to lawyers such as the index, the icon, and the symbol; (5) the expansion of legal rhetoric through use of the index, the icon, and the non-verbal as well as the verbal symbol, (6) the nature of various semiotic acts in public and private law (including assertives, commissives, directives, and verdictives); (7) the interpretation and construction of semiotic acts (including contracts as commissives and legislation as directives); (8) the role of speaker or reader meaning in the interpretation and construction of semiotic acts; (9) the semiotics of meaning, time, and the fixation of meaning debate; (10) the impact of signifier drift; (11) the distinction between sense and understanding; and (12) some brief reflections on semiotics and the First Amendment. This article also provides an Appendix of further terms and concepts useful to lawyers in their explorations of semiotics.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

CFP: International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law

From the mailbox:

Call for papers: The 20th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2019). The theme is The Limits of Law. The conference will take place at the Instituto Juridico da Faculdade de Derito da Universidade de Coimbra. Comfirmed speakers include Francois Ost (Universite Saint-Louis, Brussels), Manuel Atienza (Universidad de Alicante), Pierre Moor (Unversite de Lausanne), Fernando Jose Bronze (Universidade de Coimbra), and J. M. Aroso Linhares (Universidade de Coimbra).

Abstracts of 300 words, maximum, should be submitted by January 15th, 2019 to Professor Aroso Linhares at jmarolinh@gmail.com and Anne Wagner at valwagnerfr@yahoo.com. Decisions will be made by January 30, 2019. Here's a link to the call.

Ricca on Bestiaries, Moral Harmonies, and the "Ridiculous" Source of Natural Rights

Mario Ricca, University of Parma, is publishing Ironic Animals: Bestiaries, Moral Harmonies, and the ‘Ridiculous’ Source of Natural Rights in volume 31 of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (2018). Here is the abstract.

The Bible recounts that in Eden, Adam gives names to all the animals. But those names are not only representations of the animals’ nature, rather they shape and constitute it. The naming by Adam contains in itself the divide between the human and non-human. Then, there is the Fall: Adam falls and forgets Being. Though he may still remember the names he gave to the animals in Eden, he is no longer sure about their meaning. Adam will have to try to remember his own intentions. Through this effort he can also become aware of how he thinks, who he is, and what was the natural order he knew before the Fall. Medieval bestiaries tell us this story. Bestiaries are works of word play populated by animal figures. They depend on back-and-forth anthropomorphization, or circular metaphor. Animal figures are portrayed as both a mirror of human nature and a window on it. Bestiaries served as means for the moral education of human beings and, at the same time, a way to criticize the current state of humanity, including political and ethical habits. Within the moral irony of medieval bestiaries we can find the origin of the invented nature that modernity will try, subsequently, to insert into natural rights discourse through the teleological oxymoron of their naturalized and naturalizing counter-factuality (natural rights will be simultaneously “being” and “ought,” nature and values/ends). I will propose a historical-semiotic journey through the ironic representations of the human-beasts from the ancient world to contemporaneity. The proposal resulting from this cultural excursion is that the words included in the many national and international Rights declarations operate much like the names Adam gave to the animals and still more as they were re-read in medieval bestiaries, both textual and musical. So, can the words of Rights still serve as musical scores, open to an infinite play of re-signification? If we were able to overcome the modern culture/nature and human being/animal dualisms, we could cast, today as in the past, a zoological gaze on human rights by means of contemporary bestiaries and, in this way, perhaps find the gist of rights’ names and our ever regained and ever lost again humanity.

The full text is not available for download.

Call For Papers, IRSL, University of Torino, September 19-20, 2019

                                                                                          

IRSL 2019, University of Torino

19-20 September 2019

Hosted by the University of Torino, LabOnt, Circe

THE REASONABLE INTERPRETER

Perspectives on legal and non legal semiotics

Legal normativity is nowadays characterized by many forms. Multi-level governance amplifies this attitude: there are different judges, different courts, and many codes (aesthetic, digital, etc) can now be recalled as valid arguments in legal reasoning. 

The 2019 Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law addresses this plural and many-sided attitude of legal discourse from the perspective of the interpreter of the legal text. What is the role of reasonableness in legal hermeneutics today?

Against this background, the conference will address issues such as: can algorithms be considered as the new topoi of legal science? How are legal semiotics and legal rhetorics interconnected? Is there still room for pathos and ethos within a reasoning that makes reference to big data? Therefore, and, most importantly: how are legal and non-legal semiotics connected today? And can this relationship be traced back to antiquity?

Abstracts of 300 words (max.) should be submitted by March 28th, 2019 to Angela Condello (Organizer) (angelacondello@gmail.com), Paolo Heritier (Organizer) (paolo.heritier@unito.it), Massimo Leone (Organizer) (massimo.leone@unito.it), Jenny Ponzo (Organizer) (jenny.cuk@hotmail.it), and Anne Wagner (President of IRSL) (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com) with participation decisions made by April 15th, 2019.

Selected papers will be invited for publication in a special issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (Springer: http://www.springer.com/lawjournal11196) or for inclusion in an edited volume.

CFP For Late Abstracts and Registration Now Open: International Roundtable For the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2018), May 25th, 2018 @thomgiddens

Law and Arts in Crime Settings The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2018) 23rd – 25th May, 2018 Hosted by Örebro University / Sweden

Website: The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2018) - School of Law, Psychology and Social work - Örebro University The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2018) ... Interdisciplinary conference ISRL 2018.

The theme "Law and Arts in Crime Settings" is interdisciplinary and cove... YOU CAN NOW START REGISTERING ONLINE FOR IRSL 2019

This roundtable aims at exploring, analysing, debating the very close semiotic connections between real and fictitious societies, and exploring the mimicking between human and non-human people in order to express the social order in which individual liberties, rights and duties are major concerns.

This roundtable will focus on how to narrate real or fictitious national crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, manslaughter, etc. We will not only focus on legal analyses and literature but also on how artists, political cartoonists and/or official court artists sketch court settings, crimes, and alleged offenders. We invite contributors to reflect on how these ideas have been examined over the years. Papers which examine the way artists, storytellers, writers, novelists, singers, movie producers have provoked public discourse to confront Law and Arts in Crime Settings are particularly welcome.

A special attention will be paid on how storytellers narrate a crime to a very young public and raise its awareness.

The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law invites further discussion into these and related questions and welcomes a plurality of approaches, including those of legal studies, philosophy, social science, linguistics, history, cultural studies, and the humanities. Abstracts of 300 words (max.) can be submitted by April 25, 2018 to Laura Ervo (Organizer) (laura.ervo@oru.se) and Anne Wagner (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com) with participation decisions made by April 30, 2018.

Selected papers will be invited for publication in a special issue of International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. (Springer: http://www.springer.com/lawjournal11196) or edited volume. Anne Wagner, Ph. D., Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches - Qualifiée Associate Professor, Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (France) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6362-9023 Centre Droit et Perspectives du Droit, Equipe René Demogue - Université de Lille II (France) Research Professor, China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing - China) http://fr.linkedin.com/in/annewagner

http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-90-481-9322-6/page/1

Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196

Series Editor, Law, Language and Communication - Routledge ( https://www.routledge.com/Law-Language-and-Communication/book-series/LAWLANGCOMM)

President of the International Roundtables for the Semiotics of Law - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2427318

Ricca on How To Make Space and Law Interplay Horizonally

ICYMI:

Mario Ricca, University of Parma, has published How to Make Space and Law Interplay Horizontally: From Legal Geography to Legal Chorology. Here is the abstract.

This essay addresses the thorny issue of how legal words and spatial experiences interplay. The topic is treated trough the spectrum of the subsidiarity principle and its semantic-spatial implications. This perspective allows for an immediate focus on the cognitive continuities extant between categorical and spatial frames. When a subject (public or private) is considered to be subsidiary with respect to another, then he/she/it is entitled to a substitution, which as such implies a semantic and experiential shifting. This very possibility for shifting/displacement reveals cognitive continuities between word and space in the legal realm and experience. Moving from this view, the essay proposes a different approach to the relationships between legal words and space, assumed as a division of power by contemporary Legal Geography. The method used to define this perspective is precisely “Legal Chorology.” The essay will address its theoretical and practical implications in bridging and dynamically managing the diffraction between law and space. Legal reasoning is thus enhanced by using a semiotic perspective in the analysis of human spatial experience and cognition. The topics addressed range from a discussion of the intertwining of the human activity of categorization and the perception of space, to an assessment of the consequences that a chorological view can engender for classical legal issues such as inheritance law, urban law, contract law, public assistance on behalf of subjects with disabilities, and so on.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

A New Book About the Language of Murderers @mikearntfield

Michael Arntfield, Professor of Criminology and Forensic Writing, Western University, and Marcel Danesi, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto, have published Murder in Plain English: From Manifestos To Memes--Looking at Murder Through the Words of Killers (Prometheus Books, 2017). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

This is the first book to examine murder through the written word—not only the writings of the killers themselves, but also the story of murder as told in literary fiction and the crime dramas that are now a staple of film and television. The authors—a criminologist specializing in cold cases, written evidence, and forensic science, and an anthropologist who has dealt with the signs and ciphers of organized crime and street gangs in his previous work—are widely recognized experts in this emerging specialty field. Based on extensive research and interviews with convicted murderers, the book emphasizes the often-overlooked narrative impulse that drives killers, with the authors explaining how both mass and serial murderers perceive their crimes as stories and why a select few are compelled to commit these stories to writing whether before, during, or after their horrific acts. The book also analyzes the written work of killers, using a combination of machine-based linguistic patterning, predictive modeling, and symbolic interpretation, to make sense of the screeds of everyone from the Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer to the Columbine attackers, the Unabomber, and the recent spate of mass shooters using social media as their preferred narrative platform. They present a theoretical perspective of murder that is based on both the criminological evidence and written works. In addition, the authors examine famous literature that has dealt ingeniously with murder and its relationship with real crime, from the Greek tragedians to Truman Capote to modern-day productions such as Making a Murderer. This unique approach offers a new means to penetrate the minds of murderers, revealing their motives as well as the wider social meanings of this age-old crime and our continuing fascination with it.

Reviews by Sharon Wheeler for the Times Higher Education Supplement  (Registration may be required; free)
San Francisco Book Review
Michael Thomas Barry for the New York Journal of Books

Legal Conversations As Signifier: A New Book From Elgar Publishing @ElgarPublishing

Forthcoming from Elgar Publishing:

Legal Conversation as Signifier (Jan M. Broekman and Frank Fleerackers, ed., September 2017) (Elgar Studies in Legal Theory). Here is a description of the book's contents.

Conversation and argument concerning laws and legal situations take place throughout society and at all levels, yet the language of these conversations differs greatly from that of the courtroom. This insightful book considers the gap between everyday discussion about law and the artificial, technical language developed by lawyers, judges and other legal specialists. In doing so, it explores the intriguing possibilities for future synthesis, a problem often neglected by legal theory.

Analysing the major components of law and legal procedure across both common and civil law, this book reveals how legal conversation on the ‘street’ contributes to our understanding of law as well as our democratic citizenship. Jan M. Broekman and Frank Fleerackers consider the impact of multiculturalism and the threat of terror on our impressions of legal conversation and the importance we place upon it, arguing that anarchism and legalism are hostile neighbours sharing many themes and motives. Exploring the meaning and sense of the concept of ‘street’ in ancient and modern times, the authors pose the question: is law just a discourse or should it be classified as one of the major narratives in human life?

Unique and discerning, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the language of law. Legal educators will find their scope broadened whilst researchers, activists and politicians will find themselves captivated by the focus on social activism and citizen motivation.

Call For Papers: 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL, 2018, 23rd-25th May, 2018)

From the mailbox:

 
The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL 2018)23rd – 25th May, 2018 Hosted by Örebro University / Sweden   This roundtable aims at exploring, analysing, debating the very close semiotic connections between real and fictitious societies, and exploring the mimicking between human and non-human people in order to express the social order in which individual liberties, rights and duties are major concerns. This roundtable will focus on how to narrate real or fictitious national crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, manslaughter, etc. We will not only focus on legal analyses and literature but also on how artists, political cartoonists and/or official court artists sketch court settings, crimes, and alleged offenders.  We invite contributors to reflect on how these ideas have been examined over the years. Papers which examine the way artists, storytellers, writers, novelists, singers, movie producers have provoked public discourse to confront Law and Arts in Crime Settings are particularly welcome. A special attention will be paid on how storytellers narrate a crime to a very young public and raise its awareness. The 19th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law invites further discussion into these and related questions and welcomes a plurality of approaches, including those of legal studies, philosophy, social science, linguistics, history, cultural studies, and the humanities. Abstracts of 300 words (max.) can be submitted by December 1, 2017 to Laura Ervo (Organizer) (laura.ervo@oru.se) and Anne Wagner (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com) with participation decisions made by January 15, 2018.  Selected papers will be invited for publication in a special issue of International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. (Springer: http://www.springer.com/lawjournal11196) or edited volume.  http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196/PSE?detailsPage=societies