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Full-Text Articles in Law
Law, Literature, And Libel: Victorian Censorship Of Dirty Filthy Books On Birth Control, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Law, Literature, And Libel: Victorian Censorship Of Dirty Filthy Books On Birth Control, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
This article presents a case study of the feminist jurisprudence performed by three early birth control advocates: Annie Besant, Jane Hume Clapperton, and Marie Stopes. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the subject of birth control was so taboo that serious efforts were made to keep John Stuart Mill from being buried in Westminster Abbey because of his sympathies with the idea of family limitation. The threat of being charged with obscenity and immorality, whether in a legal indictment, in a literary review, or in the court of public opinion, effectively silenced much public discourse on this important …
Looking For Law In All The Wrong Places: Outlaw Texts And Early Women's Advocacy, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Looking For Law In All The Wrong Places: Outlaw Texts And Early Women's Advocacy, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Recent Supreme Court decisions such as Atkins v. Virginia and Lawrence v. Texas specifically address the linkages between shifting cultural attitudes and the evolution of law. In this Article, I examine the mutually constitutive relationship between legal and cultural developments from a historical perspective and illustrate the necessity of looking to sources that I define as outlaw texts in order to access invaluable information about the process of legal change.
To demonstrate how a study of outlaw texts can enrich our understanding and critical consideration of law and legal history, this Article presents detailed analyses of specific examples of nineteenth-century …
Alice In Legal Wonderland: A Cross-Examination Of Gender, Race And Empire In Victorian Law And Literature, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Alice In Legal Wonderland: A Cross-Examination Of Gender, Race And Empire In Victorian Law And Literature, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
Lewis Carroll's 1865 scene of a recalcitrant Alice in the courtroom, defying the court's authority as she grows (literally) into a large and threatening presence, dramatizes what was becoming an increasingly common Victorian spectacle: a woman questioning and critiquing the law and claiming a place for herself within its institutions. Women have played a significant (but much overlooked) role in legal history and, in this paper, I argue for the importance of examining various narratives of the past (including literary accounts) that explored women's relationship to the law.
Against the backdrop of several legal cases in which women sought entry …
Never Mind The Manner Of My Speech: The Dilemma Of Socrates' Defense In The Apology, Thomas D. Eisele
Never Mind The Manner Of My Speech: The Dilemma Of Socrates' Defense In The Apology, Thomas D. Eisele
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
What might we learn from reading Plato's Apology? Socrates, the foremost teacher in Western culture, is on trial for his life, and he defends the way he has lived by describing how he has conducted himself; this means describing how he has taught and what he has taught and why he teaches as he does. The charge against Socrates is that he does not believe in the traditional deities of Athens and instead has introduced new deities (an apparent reference to his inner voice, his daimonion).This impiety on his part has led him to corrupt Athenian youths influenced by his …