What will be the next big secondary journal category?

I wonder what the next big secondary journal area will be. Many schools have embraced civil rights, public interest, and business law reviews. Womyn’s law (whatever that is suppossed to mean) has a few journals and so does sports and entertainment law. There’s certainly no shortage of articles submitted to any and all reviews and I doubt that a few more specialized journals would negatively impact the law review process as a whole.

Secondary law reviews often get a bum rap, but some practioners have argued that secondary law reviews often print articles that are more applicable to the practice of law. There are many fine secondary law reviews and many great students that work on these reviews. Specialized journals create avenues to explore issues that might get passed by in the law review game.

So what’s next? Here are a few areas I’d like to see:

Law and Literature: There are a few journals whose focus is law and society and also a few that spend most of their time on law and literature, but there’s not much. Many professors are incorporating literature into their classes and into their writing. Law and literature gives us a new way to think about writing and a new way to write about the law.  Law and literature reviews would allow inquiry into the law as literature as well as the law in literature. 

Legal History:  There are peer-reviewed journals of legal history, but legal history gets barely a nod in the law review process.  This is suprising considering the tremendous popular interest in legal history.  How many volumes on Brown v. Board’s historical impact or the actions of the founders as the Constitution came to be?  How many times have students and teachers reviewed the historical changes in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence or considered the impact of World War I and II on the law?  There is a tremendous body of scholarship that be cultivated from the many lawyers, scholars, and students who majored in history (quite a few of us legal types). 

Law and Accountability:  I envision this area including issues of government accountability, corporate accountability, and issues of legal elites and accountability.  Enron, Lehman Brothers, Marc Dann, and more all offer interesting areas of discussion.  Ever since the GAO, became the Government Accountability Office, we’ve seen much discussion about accountability and it’s time the legal academy devoted a journal to this subject.  To be sure much of the accountability issues are discussed in business law reviews, but there is enough out there to warrant the creation of an accountability law review.  The various financial recovery plans and struggling economic times makes this a timely topic.  Until our businesses and legal elites become infallible, there will be room for accountability discussions. 

Law and Colonial Studies: I’m probably one of very few who comes at colonial studies from a legal background, but I’m sure there are others.  This type of law review would discuss issues not only postcolonial jurisprudential theory, but also of the relationship between countries and their former colonies, the legal relationship of the US and Puerto Rico, and much more.  This journal would be equally relevant to theory debates as well as discussions of international law, nationalism, and other what might be termed by some (certainly not me) as “more practical” concerns. 

I’d be interested to hear other thoughts about sbujects that are underrepresented in the law review game.  What subjects matter?  Who’s voices are being marginalized?  What secondary law reviews aren’t living up to their billing?

Zizek and the law

I was reading over some Slavoj Zizek materials yesterday after hearing more than a few debate rounds at the ADA National Tournament at Appalachian State University in beautiful Boone, NC.

Zizek is one of the more controversial intellectuals of our time. He’s had a profound impact on cultural theory, sociology, philosophy, criticism, and debate. He never avoids controversy and has a knack for being able to write across disciplines.

Zizek is often misunderstood as a contradictory crazy, for lack of a better phrase. Too often instead of appreciating the totality of his work, critics try to position each writing in conflict in order to find inconsistencies.

This masks the larger importance of Zizek’s writing, namely that his self-admitted goal is to criticize, to question. He is not a provider of answers, he is an enabler of thought. Understanding philosophy and criticism as a way to reinvigorate the subjective is a much more fulfilling path than viewing criticism as an esoteric absurdity.

Zizek opens up space and encourages questioning. These are important ideas that would compliment any discipline.  Maligning Zizek as a radical or dismissing him to the obscurity bin is the wrong approach.  He’s a much easier read than his greatest influence Lacan, or Deleuze, or Baudrillard, or Derrida.  If you haven’t thumbed through some Zizek, perhaps you should. 

I hope that as I continue to write this article that I learn more about my own relationship with the law, as a critic.  Zizek has written important about law and society, terrorism, and political action, but there has not been a thorough examination of these writings from a legal scholar’s standpoint.  I hope that I can produce something that does justice to Zizek and helps broaden our conceptions of legal theory.

I’ve published a new paper

the crit: a critical legal studies journal has published my article on Atlantis, narrative, and critical legal studies.  This is a great journal with a really excited and dedicated staff.  We need more avenues like this in the legal academy.  I hope the success of the crit and any success I can bring to them encourages other schools and students to pursue critical legal studies. 

The citation is:  Nick J. Sciullo, Atlantean Prose and the Search for Democracy, 2 the crit: j. critical legal stud. 130 (2009). 

The paper is available at the crit or on SSRN. 

The asbstract from SSRN is below:

Atlantis, the Lost City, has been a focal point of folklore, archeological inquiry, literary criticism, and mystic interpretation. It has boggled the brilliant, confused scientists, and sparked the interest of children. “Skeptics, archaeologists, geologists, and anthropologists may rant and rave, but the myth of Atlantis endures. In every generation, someone emerges to champion the cause and to embroider the story.” But the significance of Atlantean prose as an avenue through which to best understand critical legal thought has not been explored in depth. To be sure, there have been numerous books, articles, and opinions analyzing Atlantis, but little attention has been given to the legal significance of this type of storytelling. What does it mean to engage myth? How can legal scholars and practitioners learn from and use lessons of antiquity? Where does modern narrative theory fit into traditional legal discourse? I ask the reader to dive into the depths with me and consider what Atlantis can teach us about democracy, critical legal studies, and the rule of law.

Meeting Cornel West and Notes on His Speech

I was fortunate enough to speak at a symposium where Cornel West was the keynote speaker. At a book signing, I had a brief moment to chat with him and the experience was incredible. I’ve never felt more thoroughly embraced by another scholar. Dr. West was engaging, eloquent, and accepting. He gave a talk to hundreds where he spoke for an hour and a half without so much as one sheet of notes. He tied together issues of hip-hop, evolution, President Obama’s election, and ideas of christian love.

West demonstrated not only the characteristics of a well-rounded humyn being and an excellent scholar, but also that of a great speaker. What scholars try to do at conferences and the like is to sound as intelligent as they write. That rarely happens. It is difficult to vocalize, in a coherent manner, the often complex ideas we trap on paper. To speak to a crowd made up of students, professors and community members alike, adds difficulty to the task.

It is relatively easy to talk to scholars about postmodernism, natural law, racial stereotypes, etc. But it is profoundly more difficult to do that with the community when one’s thoughts are tightly wrapped in the language of the academy. Dr. West was both scholarly and personable. He present his ideas using the diction and tone of a learned man, but was able to connect with the diverse audience all the same. Many have proclaimed that Dr. West is the most prominent public intellectual of our generation and it is not difficult to see why.

I was even more convinced that it was necessary at all costs to be personable to desire the connection that makes our writing and speaking actionable. All the talk in the world means little if people are unable or unwilling to act on it. West clearly desires enabling listeners. He recognizes the connection between scholarship and activism. He knows that people solve problems. It is no coincidence that both words start with “p.”

We should all take these lessons to heart. Sound speaking leads to sound advocacy. Sound advocacy is enforced by a sound connection amongst people. Perhaps that is why Dr. West is indeed one of the most important intellectuals of our time. He understands his responsibility to the community. He simply gets it.

The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop’s Influence on Law and Culture

The West Virginia University College of Law proudly presents a progressive exploration into the real and burgeoning impact that hip hop music and culture is having on U.S. law and on global culture. The Sports and Entertainment Law Society, together with the West Virginia University Festival of Ideas, the WVU Center for Black Culture and Research, the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, the WVU Office of Social Justice, the WVU Black Law Student Association and Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishers join with the College of Law in assembling and presenting one of the most accomplished and diverse groups of academics and thinkers ever assembled to debate the profound global impact that hip hop culture is demonstrating for both good and ill. We are proud to present: The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop’s Influence on Law and Culture. Keynote addresses for this event will be provided by Cornel West and Talib Kweli. We invite you to join us on February 12th and 13th, 2009, in beautiful Morgantown, WV, in the Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom on the campus of the West Virginia University Law Center. We look forward to providing and stimulating, insightful, forward-looking discussion and debate.

If you need information or have questions or comments about the conference, please feel free to contact one of the conference organizers at West Virginia University:

Conference Chairperson:
andré douglas pond cummings
Professor of Law
West Virginia University College of Law

Conference Directors:
Bethany Swaton
Symposium Director
President, Sports and Entertainment Law Society
3L, West Virginia University College of Law

Robert Dixon
Executive Vice-President, Sports and Entertainment Law Society
3L, West Virginia University College of Law

Editing a law review article

As I edit a recent article for the final time before publication, I’m excited to have written somewhat out of my comfort zone. I usually write on the post-world (not cereal). Postmodernism, postmodern jurisprudence, poststructuralism, etc. I write on race, class, and gender with a keen interest in the legal and socio-political conditions that make the world we live in interesting.

This article develops a new way of thinking about law–a fact-centric approach. I’ve always believed that facts make the difference and that unfortunately, most people don’t investigate beyond the bare essentials. When reading a court case, one is often struck by the incomplete picture crafted in Justice X’s statement of the case.

I hope that scholars take my ideas to heart. We must look beyond our textbooks and journals to the world we seek to characterize in these tomes. Wouldn’t it just be horrible if we humynized the law?