This volume of "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" contains an international and interdisciplinary array of legal scholarship. Presenting diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, this work illuminates the law's response to its social context as well as the way law shapes that context. It shows how legal scholars contribute to public debate about contemporary issues as well as how they articulate the nature of rights and the limits of law.

This special issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society focuses on the discourse of judging and the "language of judging" within many diverse legal scenarios. The volume features chapters specifically on: the "language of rights" within the context of abortion and same-sex marriage cases; discourses within the European Court of Justice; the modern-day place of politics in the US Supreme Court; and discussions on the two-court crisis which lead to the US Constitutional Convention of 1849. The chapters question the complex and conflicting relationship between politics and the law,...

This special issue is dedicated to the life and work of beloved legal scholar Stuart Scheingold. The articles brought together in this volume articulate the inspiring contribution Scheingold has made to the field of political science. The final chapter on Rights, Community, and Democracy is a work authored by Stuart Scheingold which has been comple

The 60th volume of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society edited by Austin Sarat, is an essential text for legal scholars with a unique focus on the disciplines of sociology, politics and the humanities. This special issue interrogates how law defines identity. It addresses the key themes of immigration and citizenship, and examines the criteria that produces the label of "American." Articles discuss birthright citizenship and immigrant membership in the US, early immigration histories, sovereignty, and citizenship policies with current examples from Europe. Are all those born or naturalized...

This forty-fifth volume of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society brings together the work of scholars from several disciplines, work which usefully illuminates central questions surrounding the operation of law and legal systems. Their work offers new perspectives on sentencing and punishment, lawyering for the public good, and the meaning of legal doctrine. The articles published here exemplify the exciting and innovative work now being done in interdisciplinary legal scholarship.

Features a symposium on law and film as well as two articles of general interest. This book addresses central questions in the operation of law and legal systems.

The scholars who contribute to this issue utilize diverse research methods to examine the lived experiences of people engaged in prostitution and the people and institutions that process them. They look at the production of knowledge about prostitution and trafficking by institutional stakeholders, and how legal responses to prostitution and trafficking are affected by class, race, ethnicity, and migration. Drawing on data derived from innovative research methods including auto-ethnography, re-calculation of historical data, and participatory methods, the authors challenge us to re-examine...

In The Beautiful Prison incarcerated Americans and prison critics seek to imagine the prison as something better than a machinery of suffering. From personal testimony to theoretical meditation these writers explore and confront the practical and cultural limits the prison places on its transformation into a socially constructive institution. Long-term prisoner Kenneth E. Hartman engages the reader in his struggle to find beauty inside the increasingly bleak and sterile confines of the California Department of Corrections. Chuck Jackson releases his imagination on Houston's notorious Harris...

Throughout American history, the discourse of civility has proven quite resilient, and concern for a perceived lack of civility has ebbed and flowed in recognizable patterns. Today we are in another era in which political leaders and commentators bemoan a crisis of incivility and warn of civility's demise. Civility, Legality, and the Limits of Justice charts the uses of civility in American legal and political discourse. How important is civility as a legal and political virtue? How does it fare when it is juxtaposed with the claim that it masks injustice? Who advocates civility and to what...

Throughout American history, the discourse of civility has proven quite resilient, and concern for a perceived lack of civility has ebbed and flowed in recognizable patterns. Today we are in another era in which political leaders and commentators bemoan a crisis of incivility and warn of civility's demise. Civility, Legality, and the Limits of Justice charts the uses of civility in American legal and political discourse. How important is civility as a legal and political virtue? How does it fare when it is juxtaposed with the claim that it masks injustice? Who advocates civility and to what...