Between Law and Culture

Relocating Legal Studies

2001

David Theo Goldberg, Michael Musheno, and Lisa C. Bower, editors

A fundamental reconsideration of legal studies in a time of changing ideas about culture, power, and identity.

"This wide-ranging and important work will be of enormous use to those interested in the cultural presuppositions of law, the cultural effects of law, and the problems associated with translating certain nonlegal notions of identity into legal terms." Judith Butler

Contributors: Rosemary J. Coombe, David M. Engel, Marjorie Garber, Herman Gray, Rona Tamiko Halualani, David Harvey, Deb Henderson, Yuen J. Huo, S. Lily Mendoza, Trish Oberweis, Paul A. Passavant, Lisa E. Sanchez, Carl F. Stychin, Tom R. Tyler, Christine A. Yalda.

Between Law and Culture is a lively, engaging, and thoughtful contribution to sociolegal scholarship. It presents a range of provocative research by scholars who are not afraid to confront the tension between the search for clean theoretical frameworks and the messiness of everyday existence under the law.

Law and Politics Book Review

What happens to legal thought when key terms-society, culture, power, justice, identity-become unsettled? With the boundaries defining sociolegal scholarship undergoing a profound shift, this book explores the intersections of law, culture, and identity. Sexuality, race, sports, and the politics of policing are among the topics the authors take up as they examine how law both reproduces and challenges fundamental notions of order, discipline, and identity.

Contributors: Rosemary J. Coombe, U of Toronto; David M. Engel, SUNY, Buffalo; Marjorie Garber, Harvard U; Herman Gray, UC, Santa Cruz; Rona Tamiko Halualani, San José State U; David Harvey, CUNY; Deb Henderson; Yuen J. Huo, UCLA; S. Lily Mendoza, U of Denver; Trish Oberweis, American Justice Institute; Paul A. Passavant, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Lisa E. Sanchez, U of Illinois; Carl F. Stychin, U of Reading; Tom R. Tyler, New York U; Christine A. Yalda.


David Theo Goldberg is director of the system-wide Humanities Research Institute at the University of California and professor of African American studies and criminology, law, and society at the University of California, Irvine. Michael Musheno is professor of justice studies at Arizona State University. Lisa C. Bower is an independent writer who lives in San Francisco.

Between Law and Culture is a lively, engaging, and thoughtful contribution to sociolegal scholarship. It presents a range of provocative research by scholars who are not afraid to confront the tension between the search for clean theoretical frameworks and the messiness of everyday existence under the law.

Law and Politics Book Review

This wide-ranging and important work will be of enormous use to those interested in the cultural presuppositions of law, the cultural effects of law, and the problems associated with translating certain nonlegal notions of identity into legal terms.

Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor in Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley

Between Law and Culture is an important exploration of the intersections of law, culture, and identity as affected by the changing boundaries of sociolegal scholarship. Sexuality, race, sports, and the politics of policing are among the topics the authors take up in this top-notch examination of how law both reproduces and challenges fundamental notions of order, discipline, and identity.

Henry A. Giroux, author of Public Spaces, Private Lives: Beyond the Culture of Cynicism