Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Spirit Injury And Feminism: Expanding The Discussion, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

To discuss spirit injury, it is at first necessary to articulate a space in the theoretical diaspora to conceptualize spirit injury as a concept deeply tied to the historical tradition of several theoretical frameworks. “Spirit injury” is a phrase popularized by critical race feminist Adrien Katherine Wing. It is a term utilized in critical race feminism (CRF) that brings together insights from critical legal studies (CLS) and critical race theory (CRT). Wing’s training is as a lawyer and legal scholar, not as a communication scholar, yet her work may help communication scholars more keenly theorize harm and violence. Her scholarship …

Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

Many in the legal academy have heard of Michelle Alexander’s new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. It has been making waves. One need only attend any number of legal conferences in the past year or so, or read through the footnotes in recent law review articles. Furthermore, this book has been reviewed in journals from a number of academic fields, suggesting Alexander has provided a text with profound insights across the university and public spheres. While I will briefly talk about the book as a book, I will spend the majority of this …

Social Justice In Turbulent Times: Critical Race Theory And Occupy Wall Street, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

In this brief article, I tackle several issues that are critically important to progressive move(ment)s in the law and in society as a whole. I am convinced that the progressive community can make great strides in enriching the law and people’s experience with it through continued articulation and combined sense of theory and practice. We need to move beyond litigation and engage our critical consciousness to embrace activism on all fronts. This is why I locate a positive politics of struggle in the Occupy Movements that I believe progressives ought to embrace . We must simultaneously come to grips with …

Conversations With The Law: Irony, Hyperbole, And Identity Politics Or Sake Pase? Wyclef Jean, Shottas, And Haitian Jack: A Hip-Hop Creole Fusion Of Rhetorical Resistance To The Law, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

This article sets out to prove why the law must be investigated in an interdisciplinary fashion which invites an in-tersection between law, popular culture, and identity politics. First, this article describes how Wyclef Jean, a hip-hop artist, is an active voice of legal criticism and why his criticism is important to a larger discussion of the law. Second, this paper develops a conception of Creole/Haitian legal studies and its importance as an analytical lens through which to perceive the law and legal institutions. Third, this piece formulates a rhetorical criticism n4 of the law through the rhe-torical terrain of Wyclef's …

Regionalism, The Supreme Court, And Effective Governance: Healing Problems That Know No Bounds, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

By actively endorsing remedies that favor a city-suburb divide, the Supreme Court has failed to allow regional development. The Supreme Court's federalism jurisprudence is unresponsive to the myriad issues pervading society. Ultimately, individuals must take action, through a process formulated in this article, to change the way in which governments and the courts respond to the needs of populations.

A battery of cases including Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny, Missouri v. Jenkins and Milliken v. Bradley, reached the Supreme Court during the tumultuous 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. A vast array of environmental laws and housing regulations also …