How Black Atlantic literature can challenge conventions and redefine literary scholarship

Abolition Time is an invitation to reenvision abolitionist justice through literary studies. Placing critical race theory, queer theory, critical prison studies, and antiprison activism in conversation with an archive of Black Atlantic literatures of slavery, Jess A. Goldberg reveals how literary studies can help undo carceral epistemologies embedded in language and poetics.

Goldberg examines poetry, drama, and novels from the nineteenth century through the twenty-first—such as William Wells Brown’s The Escape, Angelina Weld Grimké’s Rachel, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen—to consider literature and literary scholarship’s roles in shaping societal paradigms. Focusing on how Black Atlantic literature disrupts the grammar of law and order, they show how these texts propose nonlinear theories of time that imagine a queer relationality characterized by care rather than inheritance, property, or biology. 

Abolition Time offers a framework for thinking critically about what is meant by the term justice in the broadest and deepest sense, using close reading to inform the question of abolishing prisons or the police and to think seriously about the most fundamental questions at the heart of the abolitionist movement.

The notion of academic freedom dates back to the creation of universities and has long been understood to be central to their vocation. This freedom has come under attack by different actors throughout its history. In the current context, rising threats to democracy and human liberties, the corporatization of research, concerns about diversity and increased societal polarization, are putting a considerable pressure on its exercise. However, academic freedom is also a concept that suffers from persistent ambiguities associated with the general notion of freedom as well as debates about the function of universities.
This edited collection addresses the question of academic freedom by situating it in its broader global context. More conceptual treatments contribute to an understanding of academic freedom as distinct and separate from, although related to, freedom of expression, or student rights. These conceptual treatments are combined with studies of actual struggles over the scope of academic freedom in specific universities. The contributions come from a broad variety of sites seek to deprovincialize the conversation beyond North America or the English-speaking world.

Has American democracy outstripped its constitutional accommodations?

Faith in the resilience and adaptability of the US Constitution rests on a long history of finding new ways to make the system work. In The Adaptability Paradox, political scientist Stephen Skowronek examines the rearrangements that regenerated the American government in the past and brings that experience to bear on our current predicament. He shows how a constitution framed in writing some 230 years ago can run into serious difficulties directly related to its long and impressive history of adaptation.

Skowronek connects questions about the Constitution’s adaptability to the challenges of democratization. For most of American history, serial rearrangements of constitutional relationships widened the government’s purview as a national democracy without giving either nationalism or democracy free rein. Skowronek argues that the politics of adaptation shifted fundamentally with the “Rights Revolution” of the 1960s and `70s when American national democracy approached the inclusion of all its citizens on equal footing. Since then, power and authority have been reconfigured in ways that have steadily magnified conflicts over the essentials of good order. Conservatives aim to dismantle a Constitution that progressives are intent on building upon, and the consensus necessary for a constitutional democracy to function effectively has all but evaporated. No longer a socially bound framework for national action, the Constitution has become an abstract matrix of possibilities, a disembodied opportunity structure open to starkly different, mutually unacceptable futures.

Rather than being liberated by this unbound Constitution, the American people now appear entrapped by it. Is it possible that the development of American democracy has exhausted the adaptive capacities of the Constitution? A timely reminder that constitutional democracies do not survive on faith alone, The Adaptability Paradox is a sober appraisal of the unfamiliar ground on which we now tread.

Administering Justice examines the leadership role of chief justices in the American states, including how those duties require chief justices to be part of the broader state political environment. Vining and Wilhelm focus extensively on the power of chief justices as public spokespersons, legislative liaisons, and reform leaders. In contrast to much existing research on chief justices in the states, this study weighs their extrajudicial responsibilities rather than intracourt leadership. By assessing the content of State of the Judiciary remarks delivered over a period of sixty years, Vining and Wilhelm are able to analyze the reform agendas advanced by chief justices and determine what factors influence the likelihood of success. These analyses confirm that chief justices engage with state politics in meaningful ways and that reactions to their proposals are influenced by ideological congruence with other political elites and the scope of their requests. Administering Justice also examines the chief justice position as an institution, provides a collective profile of its occupants, and surveys growing diversity among court leaders.

Insightful and path-breaking, Affirmative Action and the Stalled Quest for Black Progress examines the accomplishments and limitations of the set-aside programs once at the center of political debates about affirmative action in the United States.

WINNER OF THE ANNE B. & JAMES B. MCMILLAN PRIZE IN SOUTHERN HISTORY

Examines the legacies of eight momentous US Supreme Court decisions that have their origins in Alabama legal disputes.

Unknown to many, Alabama has played a remarkable role in a number of Supreme Court rulings that continue to touch the lives of every American. In Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation, Steven P. Brown has identified eight landmark cases that deal with religion, voting rights, libel, gender discrimination, and other issues, all originating from legal disputes in Alabama.

Written in a concise and accessible manner, each case law chapter begins with the circumstances that created the dispute. Brown then provides historical and constitutional background for the issue followed by a review of the path of litigation. Excerpts from the Court’s ruling in the case are also presented, along with a brief account of the aftermath and significance of the decision. The First Amendment (New York Times v. Sullivan), racial redistricting (Gomillion v. Lightfoot), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Frontiero v. Richardson), and prayer in public schools (Wallace v. Jaffree) are among the pivotal issues stamped indelibly by disputes with their origins in Alabama legal, political, and cultural landscapes. By examining such landmark twentieth-century milestones and eras such as the Scottsboro Boys trial, the Civil Rights movement, and the fight for women’s rights through a legal lens, Brown sheds new and unexpected light on the ways that events in Alabama have shaped the nation.

In addition to his analysis of cases, Brown discusses the three associate Supreme Court justices from Alabama to the Supreme Court: John McKinley, John Archibald Campbell, and Hugo Black. Their cumulative influence on constitutional interpretation, the institution of the Court, and the day-to-day rights and liberties enjoyed by every American is impossible to measure. A closing chapter examines the careers and contributions of these three Alabamians.
 

A compelling exploration of how Alabama’s aging water laws endanger its resources and why urgent, forward thinking reform is essential for the state’s future.

Alabama Water-Resources Law is the first truly comprehensive study examining the structure and shortcomings of Alabama’s water law. This prodigious treatise provides a necessary tool to help the state and its people understand and prepare for the wise use of its water resources. Part I provides a clear and critical statement of Alabama’s current water law in eleven chapters. Part II expands on the criticisms of existing Alabama law, recounts the history of previous efforts at addressing those criticisms, and makes recommendations for change, taking lessons from other southeastern states.

Throughout, University of Alabama law professor Heather Elliott underscores the flaws in Alabama’s current body of law, arguing that Alabama’s abundant water resources have fostered complacency that the state and its residents can no longer afford. As Alabama’s water supply is strained by population growth, economic development, and global climate change, the deficiencies in the archaic legal framework will become crippling. Investments made on the assumption of plenty will fail as water becomes less available, Alabama’s world-class aquatic biodiversity will become even more endangered, and Alabama’s courts will suffer a glut of new litigation as parties fight over rights to a finite resource. Elliott demonstrates how Alabama can avoid the worst of these consequences through the adoption of a regulated riparian statute.

Ample illustrations provide an extensive inventory of the state’s surface and groundwater resources and a technical primer on instream flow. This is a must-read for all Alabama policymakers, attorneys, and concerned citizens to answer water-law questions and to make proactive laws to bring Alabama into twenty-first-century practices.
 

Now in its third edition, Alaska Natives and American Laws is still the only work of its kind, canvassing federal law and its history as applied to the indigenous peoples of Alaska. Covering 1867 through 2011, the authors offer lucid explanations of the often-tangled history of policy and law as applied to Alaska’s first peoples. Divided conceptually into four broad themes of indigenous rights to land, subsistence, services, and sovereignty, the book offers a thorough and balanced analysis of the evolution of these rights in the forty-ninth state.

Parents of children with disabilities often situate their activism as a means of improving the world for their child. However, some disabled activists perceive parental activism as working against the independence and dignity of people with disabilities. This thorny relationship is at the heart of the groundbreaking Allies and Obstacles.

The authors chronicle parents’ path-breaking advocacy in arenas such as the right to education and to liberty via deinstitutionalization as well as how they engaged in legal and political advocacy. Allies and Obstacles provides a macro analysis of parent activism using a social movement perspective to reveal and analyze the complex—and often tense—relationship of parents to disability rights organizations and activism. 

The authors look at organizational and individual narratives using four case studies that focus on intellectual disability, psychiatric diagnoses, autism, and a broad range of physical disabilities including cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. These cases explore the specific ways in which activism developed among parents and people with disabilities, as well as the points of alliance and the key points of contestation. Ultimately, Allies and Obstacles develops new insights into disability activism, policy, and the family.

In 1955 the Supreme Court ruled that veterans of the U.S. armed forces could not be court-martialed for overseas crimes that were not detected until after they had left military service. Territorial limitations placed such acts beyond the jurisdiction of civilian courts, and there was no other American court in which they could be adjudicated. As a result, a jurisdictional gap emerged that for decades exempted former troops from prosecution for war crimes. “This was not merely a theoretical possibility,” Patrick Hagopian writes. Over a dozen former soldiers who participated in the My Lai massacre did in fact “get away with murder.” Further court rulings expanded the gap to cover civilian employees and contractors that accompanied the armed forces.

In American Immunity, Hagopian places what he calls the “superpower exemption” in the context of a long-standing tension between international law and U.S. sovereignty. He shows that despite the U.S. role in promulgating universal standards of international law and forming institutions where those standards can be enforced, the United States has repeatedly refused to submit its own citizens and troops to the jurisdiction of international tribunals and failed to uphold international standards of justice in its own courts. 

In 2000 Congress attempted to close the jurisdictional gap with passage of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. The effectiveness of that legislation is still in question, however, since it remains unclear how willing civilian American juries will be to convict veterans for conduct in foreign war zones.

Since 1975, when the U.S. government adopted a policy of self-determination for American Indian nations, a large number of the 562 federally recognized nations have seized the opportunity to govern themselves and determine their own economic, political, and cultural futures. As a first and crucial step in this process, many nations are revising constitutions originally developed by the U.S. government to create governmental structures more attuned to native people's unique cultural and political values. These new constitutions and the governing institutions they create are fostering greater governmental stability and accountability, increasing citizen support of government, and providing a firmer foundation for economic and political development.

This book brings together for the first time the writings of tribal reform leaders, academics, and legal practitioners to offer a comprehensive overview of American Indian nations' constitutional reform processes and the rebuilding of native nations. The book is organized in three sections. The first part investigates the historical, cultural, economic, and political motivations behind American Indian nations' recent reform efforts. The second part examines the most significant areas of reform, including criteria for tribal membership/citizenship and the reform of governmental institutions. The book concludes with a discussion of how American Indian nations are navigating the process of reform, including overcoming the politics of reform, maximizing citizen participation, and developing short-term and long-term programs of civic education.

Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, Robert McCloskey’s classic work on the Supreme Court’s role in constructing the U.S. Constitution has introduced generations of students to the workings of our nation’s highest court. For this new fifth edition, Sanford Levinson extends McCloskey’s magisterial treatment to address the Court’s most recent decisions.

As in prior editions, McCloskey’s original text remains unchanged. In his historical interpretation, he argues that the strength of the Court has always been its sensitivity to the changing political scene, as well as its reluctance to stray too far from the main currents of public sentiments. In two revised chapters, Levinson shows how McCloskey’s approach continues to illuminate developments since 2005, including the Court’s decisions in cases arising out of the War on Terror, which range from issues of civil liberty to tests of executive power. He also discusses the Court’s skepticism regarding campaign finance regulation; its affirmation of the right to bear arms; and the increasingly important nomination and confirmation process of Supreme Court justices, including that of the first Hispanic justice, Sonia Sotomayor.

The best and most concise account of the Supreme Court and its place in American politics, McCloskey's wonderfully readable book is an essential guide to the past, present, and future prospects of this institution.

The ancient Greeks invented written law. Yet, in contrast to later societies in which law became a professional discipline, the Greeks treated laws as components of social and political history, reflecting the daily realities of managing society. To understand Greek law, then, requires looking into extant legal, forensic, and historical texts for evidence of the law in action. From such study has arisen the field of ancient Greek law as a scholarly discipline within classical studies, a field that has come into its own since the 1970s.

This edited volume charts new directions for the study of Greek law in the twenty-first century through contributions from eleven leading scholars. The essays in the book’s first section reassess some of the central debates in the field by looking at questions about the role of law in society, the notion of “contracts,” feuding and revenge in the court system, and legal protections for slaves engaged in commerce. The second section breaks new ground by redefining substantive areas of law such as administrative law and sacred law, as well as by examining sources such as Hellenistic inscriptions that have been comparatively neglected in recent scholarship. The third section evaluates the potential of methodological approaches to the study of Greek law, including comparative studies with other cultures and with modern legal theory. The volume ends with an essay that explores pedagogy and the relevance of teaching Greek law in the twenty-first century.

Animal law has become a topic of growing importance internationally, with animal welfare and animal rights often assuming center stage in contemporary debates about the legal status of animals. While nonspecialists routinely decontextualize ancient texts to support or deny rights to animals, experts in fields such as classics, biblical studies, Assyriology, Egyptology, rabbinics, and late antique Christianity have only just begun to engage the topic of animals and the law in their respective areas. This volume consists of original studies by scholars from a range of Mediterranean and West Asian fields on a variety of topics at the intersection of animals and the law in antiquity. Contributors include Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer, Beth Berkowitz, Andrew McGowan, F. S. Naiden, Saul M. Olyan, Seth Richardson, Jordan D. Rosenblum, Andreas Schüle, Miira Tuominen, and Daniel Ullucci. The volume is essential reading for scholars and students of both the ancient world and contemporary law.

Winner, Friends of the Dallas Public Library Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, 2003

Antiphon was a fifth-century Athenian intellectual (ca. 480-411 BCE) who created the profession of speechwriting while serving as an influential and highly sought-out adviser to litigants in the Athenian courts. Three of his speeches are preserved, together with three sets of Tetralogies (four hypothetical paired speeches), whose authenticity is sometimes doubted. Fragments also survive of intellectual treatises on subjects including justice, law, and nature (physis), which are often attributed to a separate Antiphon the Sophist. Were these two Antiphons really one and the same individual, endowed with a wide-ranging mind ready to tackle most of the diverse intellectual interests of his day?

Through an analysis of all these writings, this book convincingly argues that they were composed by a single individual, Antiphon the Athenian. Michael Gagarin sets close readings of individual works within a wider discussion of the fifth-century Athenian intellectual climate and the philosophical ferment known as the sophistic movement. This enables him to demonstrate the overall coherence of Antiphon's interests and writings and to show how he was a pivotal figure between the sophists and the Attic orators of the fourth century. In addition, Gagarin's argument allows us to reassess the work of the sophists as a whole, so that they can now be seen as primarily interested in logos (speech, argument) and as precursors of fourth-century rhetoric, rather than in their usual role as foils for Plato.

Not much escapes the intellect and imagination of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. Whether it be love, children, education, moral reasoning, happiness or the proper dispositions for human existence, St. Thomas seems an expert in all of it. Crime and criminal conduct are no exceptions to this general tendency with him. Not only does he have much to say about it, what he relates is perpetually fresh and surely the bedrock of what is now taken for granted. In this short treatise, the focus targets St. Thomas’s criminal codification – his law of crimes.

Indeed the magnanimity of his crimes code is a subject matter not yet treated in any detail in the scholarly literature. While parts and pieces are covered in many quarters, the literature has yet to develop a systematic, codified examination of Thomistic criminal law. The essence of the endeavor is threefold: first, how does St. Thomas factor the nature of the human person into the concept of criminal culpability and personal responsibility; second, what types of criminal conduct does St. Thomas specifically delineate and define; and lastly, what is Thomas’s view of mitigation and defense, as well as the corresponding punishment meted out for criminal conduct? This short commentary zeroes in on Thomistic Criminal Law – a project which will illuminate the root, the heritage and the foundation of modern criminal codification.

More than a decade ago, before globalization became a buzzword, Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth established themselves as leading analysts of how that process has shaped the legal profession. Drawing upon the insights of Pierre Bourdieu, Asian Legal Revivals explores the increasing importance of the positions of the law and lawyers in South and Southeast Asia.

            Dezalay and Garth argue that the current situation in many Asian countries can only be fully understood by looking to their differing colonial experiences—and in considering how those experiences have laid the foundation for those societies’ legal profession today. Deftly tracing the transformation of the relationship between law and state into different colonial settings, the authors show how nationalist legal elites in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea came to wield political power as agents in the move toward national independence. Including fieldwork from over 350 interviews, Asian Legal Revivals illuminates the more recent past and present of these legally changing nations and explains the profession’s recent revival of influence, as spurred on by American geopolitical and legal interests.

Reviewing the dismantling of American labor law in more than 100 Supreme Court cases

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935, guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Since its passage, the NLRA has functioned as the foundational statute of United States labor law. Opposed by conservatives and members of the Republican Party from the beginning, its provisions were largely upheld by the Supreme Court until the 1960s. In the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, however, the Court began to erode the protections of the NLRA. While some cases have received widespread attention from commentators and scholars, such as Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney (2024), there have been numerous detrimental rulings that are little discussed. Taken as a whole, the Supreme Court’s efforts to undermine the NLRA appear sustained and systematic.

In The Assault on American Labor Law, distinguished labor law professor Roger C. Hartley collects and carefully reviews every Supreme Court decision concerning the NLRA over the past sixty years. By examining approximately 100 cases, Hartley demonstrates that the Court has often operated more like a legislature than a judicial body, effectively amending the NLRA’s collectivist policy underpinnings in favor of the interests of individuals and businesses. These judicial decisions create staggering obstacles for American workers to collectively organize and force them to face globalization, deindustrialization, and technological change individually, without the negotiating leverage provided by union representation. While scholars have suggested individual reforms to re-establish the efficacy of the NLRA, Hartley’s thorough study illuminates how the current crisis in US labor law evolved—a comprehensive view that is necessary to help restore the rights of workers to unionize.