‘As Rude As You Like – Honest’: Theatre Criticism and the Law

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-277
Author(s):  
David Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
General Assumption ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Activity ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Critical Process ◽  
The Way

In 2001, when David Soul sued the Daily Mirror for printing a defamatory review of his West End show, The Dead Monkey, questions surfaced about the critic's rights and responsibilities under the law. There have been numerous accounts in recent years of the relationships between law and literature, and the general assumption is that critics can claim the defence of ‘fair comment’. However, very little work has been done on the history, rationale, and implications of that defence, or on the actions before Soul's in which aggrieved theatre people have attempted to bring critics to account. David Roberts evaluates individual cases from legal history in which the critic's rights have been tested, and considers what they have to tell us about the way our society conceptualizes critical activity. Bourdieu's history of taste is invoked, but modified to show how the law's concern with formalism in its own processes has endorsed a matching version of the critical process. David Roberts is Head of English at the University of Central England, Birmingham.

scholarly journals THE ROLE OF PRIVATE LAW IN PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eltjo Schrage
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
International Study ◽  
Study Group ◽  
Private Law ◽  
International Study Group ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Metropolitan University ◽  
The University

The first contribution published in this edition is an abridged version of the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Eltjo JH Schrage on 24 August 2009 in Port Elizabeth. The Faculty of Law is honoured that such an internationally esteemed jurist accepted the appointment as first Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Law in 2009. Prof Eltjo JH Schrage was born in Groningen. He studied law at the University of Groningen, where he obtained his doctorandus, a degree which is analogous to our master’s degree. In 1975 he defended his doctoral thesis entitled Libertas est facultas naturalis. Menselijke vrijheid in een tekst van de Romeinse jurist Florentinus (Human liberty in a text of the Roman jurist Florentinus). His academic career commenced in 1969 at the Free University, Amsterdam. In 1980 he was appointed as professor at the Free University in Roman Law and Legal History. In 1998 he became the director of the Paul Scholten Institute at the University of Amsterdam. Some of his other academic appointments include the following:• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Restitution;• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Torts;• Visiting Professor: University of Cape Town;• Visiting Fellow: Magdalen College, Oxford University as well as visiting professor at Oxford;• Visiting Professor: University of the North (now Limpopo) in Polokwane; and• Visiting Fellow: Trinity College, Cambridge University as well as visiting professor, Cambridge. Prof Schrage has published extensively in International journals in Dutch, English, German French, and Italian. He has edited, written and contributed to more than 30 books, and written more than 100 articles. He has been the supervisor of numerous doctoral students, including Prof Marita Carnelley of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and erstwhile member of the Faculty of Law, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Prof André Mukheibir, Head of Department, Private Law of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He was also the promoter of the honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Amsterdam to the former chief justice of South Africa, Arthur Chaskalson in 2002. Prof Schrage has also acted as judge in the Amsterdam court since 1981. Prof Schrage is married to Anneke Buitenbos-Schrage and the couple have four children and one grandchild.

scholarly journals A History of the Law Faculty

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
John M. Law ◽  
Roderick J. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Law School ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Law Faculty ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
The Way

The authors examine the history of the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta. Beginning with a look at the early requirements to practice law in Alberta, the authors discuss the events leading to the establishment of the first permanent law school in the province. An analysis of the evolution of the Faculty is conducted. Along the way, the important contributions of many individuals, from John A. Weir to Wilbur Bowker, are acknowledged.

Reorganization of the Governmental Structure of Roumania

1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 700-703
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Roucek
Keyword(s):  
Central Administration ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Law ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The University

The law for the reorganization of central administration and the law on local administration (July 20, 1929) sponsored by the National Peasant government of Roumania have recently been put into effect. Both measures were drafted by Professors Negulescu, of the University of Bucharest, and Alexianu, of the University of Cernauţi. Their adoption comprises one of the most thorough governmental reforms in the history of the Balkans.The structure of the Roumanian government was, until very recently, almost completely copied from the French system. Roumania was a typical example of a unitary organization. The whole power of government was centralized in Bucharest. Practically all powers of local government were derived from the central authority, and were enlarged and contracted at the will of Bucharest. The whole system lent itself admirably to the domination of the National Liberal party, guided up to 1927 by Ion I. C. Brǎtianu, and after his death by his brother, Vintilǎ I. C. Brǎtianu, who died last year.Since the strength of the National Peasant party, which assumed the reins in 1928, lies largely in the provinces acquired at the close of the World War, a decentralization of government was to be expected. The bitter resentment of Maniu and his associates toward the over-centralization which favored the policies of the Bratianus forced the recent overhauling of the governmental structure, tending toward federalism—a form which takes cognizance of the differences of the past and present between the old kingdom and the new provinces and attempts to extend democratic features of self-rule to the electorate. At the same time, it attempts to secure bureaucratic expertness.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter provides an overview of legal history research. An attorney might conduct legal history research if the law at question in a legal dispute is very old: the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are well over two hundred years old. Historical research also comes into play when the question at issue is what the law was at a certain time in the past. Ultimately, law plays an important part in the political and social history of the United States. As such, researchers interested in almost every aspect of American life will have occasion to use legal materials. The chapter then describes the U.S. legal system and legal authority, and offers six points to consider in approaching a historical legal research project.

scholarly journals A Choice among Values: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on the Defence of Necessity

1969 ◽  
pp. 848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
A Value ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Way

The author explores various theoretical approaches to the defence of necessity, rejecting both excusatory conceptions of the defence and those based on the notion of moral involuntariness. Rather, the author argues that necessity is properly understood as a justificatory defence based on a lack of moral blameworthiness. After extensively surveying the history of the defence in Canadian law, the author critiques the way in which the Supreme Court of Canada has restricted the defence. He contrasts the current Canadian approach with the treatment of the defence in other jurisdictions and concludes that Canadian law would be served best by a robust defence of necessity, which would acknowledge that, in some circumstances, pursuit of a value of greater worth than the value of adherence to the law can be justified.

Roman Law as Part of Ancient Civilization: Reflections on Leopold Wenger's Last Work

Traditio ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 381-394
Author(s):  
Hans Julius Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Ancient Civilization ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

The monumental volume with which we are dealing is the legacy left to his science by a man who will always be counted among the most distinguished and most influential scholars of Roman law and ancient legal history in the first half of the twentieth century. As early as 1902, when he first began to teach Roman law at the University of Graz, Leopold Wenger had conceived a plan of writing a history of the whole legal order of the Romans that would comprise the total of public, procedural, and private institutions in one great unit. He proposed to see his unit in the light of its general political and cultural setting and to interpret it as bringing to its climax and final achievement, under Justinian, the evolution of law and legal thought of all antiquity; antiquity itself he understood as one single historical process interrelating the multitude of peoples and civilizations of the Mediterranean area that grew and declined, succeeded and influenced each other, until they were absorbed into the Roman Empire and were thus enabled to transmit their common heritage to later centuries. Understandably enough, this gigantic project involved more than one scholar could accomplish in one lifetime. Wenger was not able to carry it out. He did, however, succeed in completing, in this detailed description and discussion of the sources, the first instalment, and happily lived to see its publication shortly before his death on September 21, 1953, at the age of seventy-nine.

Arbitration and Literature

2020 ◽  
pp. 894-909
Author(s):  
François Ost
Keyword(s):  
Law And Literature ◽  
State Courts ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Court System ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Difference ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Way

This chapter discusses the representation of arbitration in literature. Arbitration seems to receive little attention in literary works, as opposed to justice and the judge, which form the heart of the ‘law and literature’ movement. This disparity is likely due to the collective fascination with the judge as the embodiment of justice. The air of mystery that often surrounds arbitration can also be explained by the difference between the way in which it is presented in fictional texts and in modern law. Literature does not usually apprehend arbitration in the strict understanding of a private judge chosen by the parties, who adjudicates on a dispute by rendering a final and binding award which he cannot enforce without the assistance of state courts. Yet literature’s approximations in the treatment of arbitration are precisely what makes them interesting, in that they shed a welcome light on a justice that is both broader and more perennial than the justice that is rendered within the strict boundaries of the traditional court system. Works of literary fiction also provide many valuable stories about the value and reach of decisions rendered by arbitrators.

Influences of New England Law on the Middle Colonies

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
George L. Haskins
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
The World ◽  
Middle Colonies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University

On October 3, 1881, William Henry Rawle, the distinguished Philadelphia lawyer and scholar, addressed students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School hoping to illustrate, ‘in a very general and elementary way,’ the differences between the growth of English and early Pennsylvania jurisprudence. ‘It would have been more interesting and more broadly useful,’ Rawle apologized to his audience, ‘if the attempt could have been extended to embrace the other colonies which afterwards became the United States, for there would have been not only the contrast between the mother country and her colonies, but the contrast between the colonies themselves.’ Rawle was confident that such an examination would have revealed how ‘in some cases, one colony followed or imitated another in its alteration of the law which each had brought over, and how, in others, the law was changed in one colony to suit its needs, all unconscious of similar changes in another.’ ‘Unhappily,’ Rawle explained, ‘this must be the History of the Future for the materials have as yet been sparingly given to the world.’

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