LawCulture

Welcome!

We welcome Susan Burgess, a political scientist and legal scholar who teaches at Ohio University, as the newest contributor to our blog. Susan and I met years ago at a wonderful short course on law and popular culture hosted by the American Political Science Association. She gave a talk called "Who's Your Daddy? Legitimacy, Parody and Soap Operas in Contemporary Constitutional Discourse," which is forthcoming in the Law, Culture and Humanities journal. Her humor and insight into all things law and culture precede her. We are very glad to have her aboard.

Welcome!

As a relative newcomer to the blogosphere, I feel strange "welcoming" others to the "space" that we occupy. I am still very unsure of how that space is constituted and whether I'll be here very long. Nevertheless, I am glad to welcome the folks over at Harvard's Berkman Center (who will not be there long, I gather, soon on to prawf-ships around the nation) who have started Info/Law here.  They are friends, and smart ones at that.

A recent post today ("Cyberlaw" and "Information Law") tickles me, about the "dusty" prefix of "cyber" and the preferred adjective of "info" to describe the kind of law they think and write about.  I particularly like the term "metaverse" (perhaps a good way to describe the "space" we are indeed occupying and proliferating by blogging).

Blog Lingua Franca

I've been noticing lately (probably later than most) the burgeoning language that blogging has produced.  For example, in the past week I have heard the following: "bloggy," "blogworthy," "bloggable," "a blogicle," and "bloggership."  At the Berkman Center's conference last week, Larry Ribstein coined the phrase "PEAPs" (for "publicly engaged academic posts"). And that got me to thinking further about other variations of language usage that the Internet blogging has generated -- to say nothing of the communities these languages constitute.

Do we "stop by" a blog when we stay for a while, that is, after we've "surfed" the net? Should this imply that a blog (or a website) is akin to an office or a living room to be visited, accessible by ... waves? When we "link" to other blogs, is the link like a nod, like a footnote, or is it fully incorporating, like another limb?  Exactly how are we committing ourselves by "linking" to others? What kind of chains are these?  And, what, really, is the translation for ;>\   or :@)  or }:>o ?

You don't see many of these funny type-faces on legal scholarship blogs (and I use the qualifier "legal scholarship"  advisably). But, as Dan Solove told us last week at the Berkman (during what was called a "Berkmania" event -- yet another lovely addition to our linga franca), "We have a romantic vision of blogging. Who are bloggers? 50% are teenagers."

So FWIW if we are to be more inclusive in our jargon and more fluent in this growing language of blogging and web-talk (perhaps that is decidedly not our goal?), we might want to consider a few more carrot-noses and winks. IMHO, that is.

The Economy of Time and Blogging

The general conversation today at the the Berkman Center's conference on Bloggership revolved around the risks and benefits of blogging.  The benefits seem obvious given the panel membership.  Every panel speaker was an example of how blogging can raise one's academic profile, or, for some, catapult them into the realm of stardom beyond the academy. (I am thinking of the cult of Ann Althouse, and perhaps even of Eugene Volokh, although I gather some will disagree that the blogs are what made them stars and still others will think there are better examples of starprawfs out there.)  The risks were less obvious -- or at least were less dwelled upon. There were concerns over libel and defamation lawsuits; intellectual embarrasment; and the time blog takes from scholarship and teaching that are required features of our jobs as law professors. It is this last one I am most interested in.

Insofar as effective blogging (and by that I mean a having a sustained, engaged readership) requires regular and frequent postings on subjects of interest, it seems the economy of time is a central mechanism of the blogosphere.  I wonder, then, if there isn't a certain privilege associated with this economy of time.  That is successful bloggers have more of it to spare.  This might mean that more often the successful blogger is a tenured professor (although Christine Hurt's statistics suggest that untenured law professors are overrepresented in the blogosphere).  Dan Solove told us that a majority of the blogs out there are created by teenagers (I would assume those teenagers are from class backgrounds where the afterschool or weekend job is unnecessary and  access to everyday computer use goes without saying).  The economy of time as a measure of successful blogging might also mean that working women with young children are underrepresented on the blogosphere, or at least are less likely to have successful blogs.  I wonder if this helps explain the underrepresentation of women in the legal blogsosphere.  (Thinking more cynically, I gather the economy of time as a measure of successful blogs may also translate into a reified privilege based on class and/or gender status, which works to entrench working mothers as second-class professionals.)

Peculiar Affinities: Legal Academia and the Blogosphere

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School is hosting a symposium next Friday, April 28th entitled "Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship." Some of the usual suspects, and some not-so-usual suspects, will be speaking. I am curious if academic disciplines other than law have experienced the blog explosion.  I won't assume that other disciplines will be much discussed at the Berkman next week, but asking the question about other disciplines might shed some light on whether the blogosphere and legal academia share a peculiar affinity.

Thanks for the welcome!

Many thanks to  PrawfsBlawg, Balkinization, and the Leiter Reports, for putting out the welcome mat!  We're glad to join the conversation. 

Hello out there. . .

Welcome to LawCulture!  We are launching a new group blog, with a focus on law, culture, politics and life inside and outside of the legal academy.  We're just gearing up, so you might not hear too much from us over the next week or two, but we're all excited to be dipping our toes blogosphere. 

So who are we?

David Barron is a professor of law at Harvard.  He writes about local government law, administrative law  and constitutional law.

Rosa Brooks is a professor of law at the University of Virginia whose academic focus is international human rights.  She also writes a weekly column for the Los Angeles TImes editorial pages.

Peter Brooks is a University Professor at the University of Virginia, who teaches in the English department and at the law school, and directs the school's Law & Humanities Programs.  He writes about narrative, narrative theory, and law and literature, among other things.

Jennifer Mnookin is a professor of law at UCLA.  She writes about issues in evidence, especially expert evidence and forensic science matters, and issues in law and humanities, particularly law and film.

Jessica Silbey is a professor at Suffolk University Law School.  She writes about the intersections of film theory and law, among other areas. 

We'll have some more contributors once we're up and running -- Kim Scheppele, who heads Princeton's program in Law and Public Affairs, plans to join us in the not-too-distant future, and we may well add some more contributors once we get going.

But first we have to get going. . .  so here goes. Wish us luck!

The Demise of A3G

The latest lawculture scandal concerns A3G, otherwise known as “Article III Groupie,” the once-anonymous author of the blog “Underneath their Robes,” (aka UTR) a sort of fan-club webblog for the federal judiciary that gossips about federal judiciary style, demeanor and yes, even some jurisprudence.  Until this week, A3G was believed to be a woman; she described her goals as becoming a “federal judiciary diva,” and commented on the attractive features of the 19 year old son of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito (the description was more to the point: he’s apparently a “hottie”). See http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051121ta_talk_toobin. A substantial community of bloggers and fellow federal judiciary fan club members are apparently appalled or embarrassed or just plain confused by the revelation of A3G’s true identity as, well, a man.  See, e.g., http://volokh.com/posts/1131979281.shtml; http://www.yalefedsoc.org/archives/2005/11/dude_blogs_like.html.  A3G, also now known as David Lat, a thirty-something Assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark and a Yale law graduate, has dismantled his blog in all the hubbub. 

Given the unorthodox mixing of high and low culture that is captured by the title of the blog itself, what is the big deal?  Is it really the gender bending?  Has the loyal readership of UTR revealed itself to be pathetically traditional when it comes to gender roles, but also nonetheless  substantially nonconformist when it comes to imagining and gossiping about the private lives and thoughts of federal judges?  Or is it the breach of confidentiality and anonymity that has the UTR readership up in arms? Are A3G’s fans upset because the fun of UTR was in guessing which “diva” in the New York metropolitan area is in fact A3G?  Was the draw in the mystery of her, and now that she has revealed herself, the draw has dissipated? Sound like a familiar and stereotypical courtship narrative? 

Perhaps the hullabaloo, then, is because the courtship is indeed over.  But why can’t A3G continue to entice, comment on and challenge the “traditional” discourse around federal court practice? Why can’t A3G exist as an alter ego to David Lat, or better, as a full-blown equivalent in the blogosphere? Why can’t fellow bloggers suspend their disbelief (as we all do every day when we enjoy theater, film and novels, as just some examples) to learn about and interact with the larger popular culture?  Do blogs occupy a different space than these more traditional creative art venues?  Or, are legal blogs, specifically, sacrosanct, presumably devoid of “fictive” impulses?  Why can’t the fact of A3G’s “fictive” identity be a revelation of the good work “fiction” does in our legal culture (and otherwise)?  I hope that readers of UTR miss A3G enough to urge her back; we should all be sufficiently sophisticated consumers (and producers) of law and culture (lawculture?) to appreciate the play that is (or was) UTR.