Call for Papers: The Law of the Land: Virginia and America

Call for Papers: The Law of the Land: Virginia and America

The Supreme Court of Virginia Historical Commission and the Library of Virginia invite proposals for a needs-and-opportunities symposium on the legal history and culture of Virginia and the United States to be held at the Library of Virginia on Friday and Saturday, 12 and 13 March 2010. The symposium will be the first event in The Law of the Land: Virginia and America, which will feature a major exhibition and other public programs beginning in 2012.

The Program Committee welcomes submissions for individual papers or for session proposals emphasizing needs-and-opportunities and new scholarship that treat large and important topics such as (but not limited to) the origins of American legal culture, the influence of Virginia on American legal culture, the common law, state constitutional law, federalism and state’s rights, courts and jurisprudence, criminal law, commercial law, labor law, environmental law, legal education, law and gender, and the law and slavery, segregation, and race. Attendance is limited to 250.

Please send proposals and a brief CV by e-mail to the Program Committee before 1 May 2009, addressed to brent.tarter@lva.virginia.gov.

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.