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Full-Text Articles in Law

Law Library Blog (October 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law Oct 2019

Law Library Blog (October 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.


'Simple' Takes On The Supreme Court, Robert Tsai Jan 2013

'Simple' Takes On The Supreme Court, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay assesses black literature as a medium for working out popular understandings of America’s Constitution and laws. Starting in the 1940s, Langston Hughes’s fictional character, Jesse B. Semple, began appearing in the prominent black newspaper, the Chicago Defender. The figure affectionately known as “Simple” was undereducated, unsophisticated, and plain spoken - certainly to a fault according to prevailing standards of civility, race relations, and professional attainment. Butthese very traits, along with a gritty experience under Jim Crow, made him not only a sympathetic figure but also an armchair legal theorist. In a series of barroom conversations, Simple ably critiqued …


"Simple" Takes On The Supreme Court, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2013

"Simple" Takes On The Supreme Court, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This essay assesses black literature as a medium for working out popular understandings of America’s Constitution and laws. Starting in the 1940s, Langston Hughes’s fictional character, Jesse B. Semple, began appearing in the prominent black newspaper, the Chicago Defender. The figure affectionately known as “Simple” was undereducated, unsophisticated, and plain spoken - certainly to a fault according to prevailing standards of civility, race relations, and professional attainment. Butthese very traits, along with a gritty experience under Jim Crow, made him not only a sympathetic figure but also an armchair legal theorist. In a series of barroom conversations, Simple ably critiqued …


Looking For Law In All The Wrong Places: Outlaw Texts And Early Women's Advocacy, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem Jan 2003

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 Jan 2001

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 …


The Law Of The American West: A Critical Bibliography Of The Nonlegal Sources, Charles F. Wilkinson Jan 1987

The Law Of The American West: A Critical Bibliography Of The Nonlegal Sources, Charles F. Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.