The Legal Case: Cross-Currents in Law and the Humanities re-examines the seemingly familiar notion of a legal case by exploring the histories, practices, conventions and rhetoric of case law . The doctrine of stare decisis, whereby courts are bound by precedent cases, underpins legal reasoning in the common law world. At the same time, the legal case is itself a product of institutional and linguistic practices, and raises broader questions about the foundations and boundaries of law. The idea of the case as an ordered, closed narrative with a determinate outcome is, for example, integral to medical, psychoanalytic, as well as forensic discourses; whilst the notion of the strange case is a popular one in the English fiction of the late nineteenth century. What is at stake in the attempt to categorise or define a situation as a legal case? Is the notion of binding precedent in case law really distinctive to the common law? And if so, why? What can the concept of a case in other disciplines and discourses tell us about how it operates in law? With contributions from legal philosophers, legal historians, literary critics, and linguists, this book moves beyond the jurisprudential discussion of the nature and authority of the legal case, as it draws on insights from philosophy, m linguistics, narratology, drama, and film.

How do lawyers, judges and jurors read novels? And what is at stake when literature and law confront each other in the courtroom? Nineteenth-century England and France are remembered for their active legal prosecution of literature, and this book examines the ways in which five novels were interpreted in the courtroom: Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Paul Bonnetain's Charlot s'amuse, Henry Vizetelly's English translation of Emile Zola's La Terre, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. It argues that each of these novels attracted legal censure because they presented figures of sexual dissidence - the androgyne, the onanist or masturbator, the patricide, the homosexual and the lesbian - that called into question an increasingly fragile normative, middleclass masculinity. Offering close readings of the novels themselves, and of legal material from the proceedings, such as the trial transcripts and judicial opinions, the book addresses both the doctrinal dimensions of Victorian obscenity and censorship, as well as the reading practices at work in the courtroom. It situates the cases in their historical context, and highlights how each trial constitutes a scene of reading - an encounter between literature and the law - through which different forms of masculinity were shaped, bolstered or challenged.

This volume examines the nature, function, development and epistemological assumptions of the legal case in an interdisciplinary context. Using the question of 'reading' as a guiding principle, it opens up new ways of understanding case law and the doctrine of precedent by bringing the law into dialogue with the humanities. What happens when a legal case is read not only by lawyers, but by literary critics, by linguists, by philosophers, or by historians? How do film makers and writers adapt and transform legal cases in their work? How might one interpret fiction in the context of the historical development of the common law? The essays in this volume test the boundaries of the legal case as a genre by inviting perspectives from other disciplines, and in doing so also raise more fundamental questions of what constitutes law and legal thinking. This book will be of interest to anyone seeking a better understanding of the common law, the humanities, and the intersection between them.

In modern-day Hong Kong, major constitutional controversies have caused people to demonstrate on the streets, immigrate to other countries, occupy major thoroughfares, and even engage in violence. These controversies have such great resonance because they put pressure on a cultural identity made possible by, and inseparable from, the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework. Hong Kong is also a city synonymous with film, ranging from commercial gangster movies to the art cinema of Wong Kar-wai. This book argues that while the importance of constitutional controversies for the process of self-formation may not be readily discernible in court judgments and legislative enactments, it is registered in the diverse modes of expression found in Hong Kong cinema. It contends that film gives form to the ways in which Hong Kong identity is articulated, placed under stress, bolstered, and transformed in light of disputes about the nature and meaning of the city's constitutional documents.

How do lawyers, judges and jurors read novels? And what is at stake when literature and law confront each other in the courtroom? Nineteenth-century England and France are remembered for their active legal prosecution of literature, and this book examines the ways in which five novels were interpreted in the courtroom: Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Paul Bonnetain's Charlot s'amuse, Henry Vizetelly's English translation of Emile Zola's La Terre, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. It argues that each of these novels attracted legal censure because they presented figures of sexual dissidence - the androgyne, the onanist or masturbator, the patricide, the homosexual and the lesbian - that called into question an increasingly fragile normative, middleclass masculinity. Offering close readings of the novels themselves, and of legal material from the proceedings, such as the trial transcripts and judicial opinions, the book addresses both the doctrinal dimensions of Victorian obscenity and censorship, as well as the reading practices at work in the courtroom. It situates the cases in their historical context, and highlights how each trial constitutes a scene of reading - an encounter between literature and the law - through which different forms of masculinity were shaped, bolstered or challenged.

In modern-day Hong Kong, major constitutional controversies have caused people to demonstrate on the streets, immigrate to other countries, occupy major thoroughfares, and even engage in violence. These controversies have such great resonance because they put pressure on a cultural identity made possible by, and inseparable from, the 'One Country, Two Systems' framework. Hong Kong is also a city synonymous with film, ranging from commercial gangster movies to the art cinema of Wong Kar-wai. This book argues that while the importance of constitutional controversies for the process of self-formation may not be readily discernible in court judgments and legislative enactments, it is registered in the diverse modes of expression found in Hong Kong cinema. It contends that film gives form to the ways in which Hong Kong identity is articulated, placed under stress, bolstered, and transformed in light of disputes about the nature and meaning of the city's constitutional documents.

In this volume, international specialists from new and established domains of law, media, film and virtual studies address the emergence of the jurist in the era of digital transmission. Examining the jurisprudence of new visual technologies--from the cinema of the early twentieth century to the social media of our own time--this volume explores the multiple intersections of these visual technologies and the law from the theoretical insight they generate to the nature of law to the impact they have on doctrinal development. Part One tracks the media, the technologies and apparatuses of modern law. It looks specifically at the acoustics of architecture, emblematic texts, films of trials, the prohibition of cameras in courtrooms and the rules of contempt, televised reporting of law, and the multiple fora and chat rooms of Facebook, vblogs, #law and the mobile-optimised web. Part Two examines the jurisprudential questions raised by new visual and virtual reality technologies of the 21st century. Will social media lead to social law? The force of legal remediation? Virtual courts and online judges? Paperless trials? Electronic discovery? All of these developments impact how we conceive of the practice of law.

Will social media lead to social law? The force of legal remediation? Virtual courts and online judges? Paperless trials? Electronic discovery? All of these novel legal developments impact how we conceive of the practice of law. Here, international specialists from new and established domains of law, media, film and virtual studies address the emergence of the jurist in the era of digital transmission. From the cinema of the early 20th century to social media, this volume explores the multiple intersections of these visual technologies and the law from the theoretical insight they generate to the nature of law to the impact they have on doctrinal development.