Law & Popular Culture:

Popular Culture and Law (International Library of Essays in Law & Society S.)  

Richard K. Sherwin (Editor)

Synopsis

This book takes as its subject the interpenetration of popular culture and law. It gathers together a broad range of essays that explore the various ways in which law’s stories and images migrate from the courtroom to the court of public opinion, and from movie, television, and computer screens back to electronic monitors inside the courtroom itself. It also examines what happens when lawyers and public relations experts market notorious legal cases and controversies as if they were just another commodity. In addition, it probes the formative relationship that is now developing between law and digital culture in virtual worlds on the Internet. Ultimately, this collection of essays invites readers to ponder what the interpenetration of law and popular culture means with respect to the current status and future fate of law, truth, and justice in contemporary society.

Table of Contents

Introductory essay:                             Richard K. Sherwin, “The Interpenetration of Popular Culture and Law;”

Part One: Law in Pop Culture

n       Chapter One:                 Lawrence M. Friedman, “Popular Legal Culture: Law,

Lawyers, and Popular Culture”

n       Chapter Two:                Norman Rosenberg, “Looking for Law in All the Old

Traces: The Movies of Classical Hollywood, The Law, and the Case(s) of Film Noir”

n       Chapter Three:              Ratna Kapur, “Postcolonial Erotic Disruptions”

n       Chapter Four:                Austin Sarat, “Living in a Copernican World”

Part Two: Pop Culture in Law         

n       Chapter Five:                Philip N. Meyer, “‘Desperate for Love’: Cinematic

Influences Upon A Defendant’s Closing Argument to a Jury ”

n       Chapter Six:                   Richard K. Sherwin, “Law Frames: Historical Truth and

Narrative Necessity in a Criminal Case”

n       Chapter Seven:             Sheila T. Murphy, “The Future of Fact: The Impact of

Factual Versus Fictional Media Portrayals”

n       Chapter Eight:               Steven Lubet, “Slap Leather! Legal Culture, Wild Bill

Hickok, and the Gunslinger Myth”

Part Three: Law as Commodity       

n       Chapter Nine:                Douglas S. Reed, “A New Constitutional Regime: The

Juridico-Entertainment Complex”

n       Chapter Ten:                 Susanne A. Roschwalb & Richard A. Stack, “Litigation

Public Relations”

n       Chapter Eleven:            Marc Galanter, “An Oil Strike in Hell: Contemporary

Legends about the Civil Justice System”

n       Chapter Twelve:           Daniel M. Filler, “From Law to Content in the New

Media Marketplace”

Part Four: Law in Cyberspace         

n       Chapter Thirteen:         F. Gregory Lastowka & Dan Hunter, “The Laws of

Virtual Worlds”

n       Chapter Fourteen:        Jack M. Balkin, “Digital Speech and Democratic Culture”

Part Five: Pop Culture and Law in Theory    

n       Chapter Fifteen:            Christopher J. Buccafusco, “Gaining/Losing Perspective

on the Law, or Keeping Visual Evidence in Perspective”

n       Chapter Sixteen:           Anthony Chase, “Toward A Legal Theory of Popular

Culture”

·  Publisher: Ashgate

·  ISBN: 0754624706