EXAMS

Dear all,
as you can check on the university website, you can take the oral L&H (diritto e cultura) exam on the following dates:

07th June 2011 at 9:00
20th June 2011 at 16:00
15th July 2011 at 15:00

05th September 2011 at 10:30
26th September 2011 at 10:30


You have to register like for all other exams. I will send you the grading of the written test via email tomorrow.

See you

Last (but not least at all) class: M° De Filippi's Concert

Dear all,
thanks to Corallina Lopez we have some extremely beautiful pictures of our last class on Law and Music. As you can see, there is also a picture showing prof. Conte, dr. Giuliani and M° De Filippi.
It was a pleasure to meet you all and I do hope you enjoyed the course as we did!

Final written exam

Dear all,
the final written exam will consist in two answers (two SHORT essays) that you have to write choosing among a list of at least 10 questions. There will be more or less 2 questions about each topic of the Law and the Humanities course from the beginning until Friday the 27th of May. THE EXAM WILL TAKE PLACE IN ROOM 6 AT 10:00!

Bodin: concentrate just on few pages!

http://books.google.it/books?id=-iA8AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:republique+inauthor:bodin&hl=it&ei=H4zbTZerK4KE-waauvyqDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Pp. 1063 and 1064, 1097 and 1098, 1101 e 1102.

Law and Music: List of Readings

Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République, l. VI, Paris, 1577, pp. 1059-1102 [accessible on googlebooks].

H. Patrick Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World, ch. 1: A Theory of Tradition? The Changing Presence of the Past, Oxford University Press, 2007 (2000) [accessible on google books].

H.E Stapleton and G. J. W., Ancient and Modern Aspects of Pythagoreanism, in “Osiris”, 13 (1958), pp. 12-53. [jstor].

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Baroque Music Today: Music as Speech. Ways to a new Understanding of Music, Amadeus Press, 1988, pp. 39-49.

Richard Boursy, Review of: Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination: Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music by James Garrat, in “Notes” (2nd series), 60.3 (2004), pp. 666-668 [jstor].

DR. ADOLFO GIULIANI AND M° LUIGI DE FILIPPI ON LAW AND MUSIC

Dear all,
we are going to conclude our Law and the Humanities course with a great event: 3 lectures about Law and Music with the participation of a professional violinist, M° Luigi De Filippi, on the 27th of May. The last lecture is thus open to everyone: please inform all the people you think could be interested!

ABSTRACT:
Law and Music: Harmony, Time and History

Dr Adolfo Giuliani — with the participation of Maestro Luigi De Filippi (Seminar 3)

What does music have to do with law? At first glance, very little. But as we take a particular perspective the two might open a fruitful field of investigation. To this end this seminar offers an exercise in comparison. Examined carefully law and music appear as two intellectual traditions with features which link them in a number of ways, and most importantly, present them as communicable and comparable. These features are harmony, time and history. Examined from this perspective, music might offer ways of answering some central questions raised within the legal tradition.

Seminar 1— Harmony (25 May)

A first feature of the western legal tradition is the internal coherence of its constructions, namely, the idea of a legal system. As it is well-known, some early examples are to be found in sixteenth century France, in the works of Duaren, Doneau, Bodin, and other authors later known as the Systematiker. This seminar shows that the idea of a system was borrowed from the vocabulary of music. It reached law through the standard teaching on liberal arts, which included commentaries on Boethius’ and Pythagoras’ music theory. But a complete understanding of this essential feature of western law requires an understanding of the musical chord and of its powerful symbolism.

Seminar 2 — Time (26 May)

It is an obvious observation that legal phenomena are deeply embedded in a dimension of

time. Precepts emerge, unfold and decay, subverted by new precepts, against the complicating dimension of time. But how time is perceived and conceptualised is greatly dependent on changes in the intellectual context. This seminar focuses on the great codifications between the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries, and shows that this phase must be placed in the context of a sharp and creative break with the past, a context marked by a radical change in time consciousness.
This phenomenon profoundly affected music, determining an upheaval in the perception and conceptualisation of time and rhythm.

Seminar 3 — History, with the participation of M° Luigi De Filippi (27 May)

Another important feature of a tradition is how it perceives its own past — its ‘pastness’. This seminar examines the rise of history-consciousness in nineteenth-century Germany, pausing on the project furthered in law by F. v. Savigny, and in music by A.F.J. Thibaut (who, interestingly, was also a jurist). This sense of ‘pastness’ profoundly affected both law and music, leading to the contemplation of pure and timeless structures of thought.
A profound concern with the ‘pastness’ affects today’s musical interpretation. In this seminar M° Luigi De Filippi, a highly respected violin virtuoso and an expert of historical performance, will illustrate some of the challenges today facing a historically-minded performance.

Adolfo Giuliani’s CV:

Dr Adolfo Giuliani (MSc London School of Economics, MPhil Cambridge, PhD Cambridge) is a legal historian working on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century civil law. He has published essays on aspects of private law, interpretation and proof, and is currently working on a book on late ius commune presumptions and on a legal history manual for Hart, Oxford. Before pursuing an academic career Dr Giuliani was a professional musician. Following formal studies at the Conservatoire he won a British Council scholarship to study violin with Emanuel Hurwitz (Royal Academy of Music, London) and Analysis of Music at the King's College, London. Further studies followed with Norbert Brainin (Amadeus Quartet). He has performed in opera, symphonic and chamber orchestras and ensembles. Interested in sparking a debate on violin teaching and interpretation, for a number of years he published a scholarly journal under the aegis of Lord Yehudi Menuhin and M° Piero Farulli (Scuola di Musica di Fiesole).

Luigi De Filippi’s CV:
A violinist and conductor, Luigi De Filippi studied violin, piano and composition in Rome, showing an early interest in jazz and contemporary music. He subsequently appeared as concertmaster in such orchestras as the Rome Opera House, La Fenice Theatre in Venice, the London Mozart Players , the Flanders Orchestra in Antwerp. In London he made his debut as conductor with the London Mozart Players , and he appeared as soloist – conductor at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona.
In 2007 he soloed in the Auckland Festival (New Zealand). He has conducted Antonio Salieri’s opera “Prima la musica, poi le parole” at the Minoritenkirche in Vienna, the very church for which Salieri wrote all his sacred music.
De Filippi has taken part in the first ever recording of music of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, for the label Edipan; he has revived “The Cady”, a 1778 opera by Thomas Linley, a friend of Mozart, conducting the London Mozart Players ; conducting his own group, the Da Ponte Ensemble on period instruments, he has recorded for the label Bongiovanni a baroque opera of 1629, Giacinto Cornachioli’s La Diana Schernita . For the Italian label Warner – Fonit he has recorded a selection of orchestral music of Francesco Saverio Mercadante, conducting the Philharmonia Mediterranea . Luigi has also appeared in television and radio broadcasts, appearing in six programmes on contemporary music for the Italian Television, and in BBC Radio 3 and RAI Radio 3, with live performances and interviews. A CD of Delphin Alard’s Fantasias for violin and chamber orchestra based on some operas of Giuseppe Verdi, recorded with the Orchestra dell’Impresario , has been released in 2008 by the Italian label Gold & Lebet ; a second issue featuring five Donizetti based Fantasias will soon be out.
Luigi has a keen interest in chamber music with period instruments: he is the violinist of the Voces Intimae piano trio (www.vocesintimae.it), now much in demand for concert appearances and recordings. They have made three CDs with the Italian label Symphonia , all on period instruments, with the trios of Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy, and a selection of 19th century Fantasias based on the operas of Vincenzo Bellini.
Intimae’ s double CD of the complete trios of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, issued by Warner Classics, has won much praise all over the world, and has been elected “CD of the year” for 2006 by BBC Radio 3. Voces Intimae has recently made its USA debut, with concerts, master classes and radio recordings and interviews.
philippi@tiscali.it

KAIUS TUORI ON LAW AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

Legal anthropology attempts to give a different view of law. Through the examination of culture and tradition, legal anthropology has studied both the traditional others, such as indigenous peoples, as well as more familiar subjects such as Western lawyers. The lectures offer three viewpoints of law and anthropology, the first historical, the second and third contemporary. The historical part examines how lawyers and anthropologists struggled to study societies without law, whereas the second illustrates the tensions between traditionalism and the modern human rights discourse. The final installment discusses the rights of indigenous peoples through the issue of land tenure.

Class Schedule

1) Legal Anthropology: Disputes and Culture

2) Claiming Rights Against Tradition: Activism in and around Science

3) How the Natives Lost Their Land: Customary Land Tenure and Colonialism

Each class consists of two parts: a) an introductory lecture, followed by a discussion, and b) a case study involving the reading material and discussion.

Readings

1) Bronislaw Malinowski, ‘Primitive Law and Order’, Nature 117 (1926), pp. 9-16

2) Sally Engle Merry and Rachel E. Stern, ‘The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong: Theorizing the Local/Global Interface’, Current Anthropology 46 (2005), 387-409.

3) Pauline Peters, ‘Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions’, World Development 37 (2009), pp. 1317–1325.

Kaius Tuori’s CV

Dr. Kaius Tuori holds a doctorate in Law and a M.A. in History from his studies at the universities of Helsinki, Finland, and La Sapienza in Rome, Italy. His research interests include legal history, Roman law, legal anthropology, and classical archaeology. In his work on intellectual history he has studied how modern law affected the history of ancient Roman law during the nineteenth century and how American Legal Realism influenced the study of early law during the mid-20th century. Currently he is finishing a book project on the early history of legal anthropology. He is Senior Researcher at the Center of Excellence of Global Governance Research at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights in Helsinki. His work has been published in the Journal of Legal Pluralism, Law, Culture and the Humanities, The Journal of Legal History, Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquite and the Legal History Review.

His website is http://blogit.helsinki.fi/katuori

LESS READING!

Dear all,
prof. Steinberg told me that you should read only the following canti to come prepared:
Wednesday: Inf. 8 and 9.
Thursday: Inf. 32 and Purg. 27.
Friday: Steinberg's short essay and Inf. 15 and Par 17.

PROF. STEINBERG ON LAW AND DANTE

Dear all,

next week we will welcome our second guest coming from the United States. The topic will be law and a very peculiar kind of literture that you should know very well: Dante and his "Divina Commedia"! So please come prepared and don't miss the opportunity to deepen a masterpiece of the Italian literature from the very interesting point of view of an American expert of the topic.

See you on Wednesday!

Abstract

"Law and Exception in Dante’s Divine Comedy"

Traditionally, when scholars encounter anomalies in Dante’s juridical otherworld, they search for doctrinal answers that safeguard and reconfirm the classifications of his penal order. The working hypothesis of this seminar instead posits that Dante creates an otherworld based on an elaborate network of laws, jurisdictions, and rulers in order to contemplate the significance of exceptions to this system. Dante wrote the Commedia, in order words, to probe the limits of the law. The workshop will be divided into three classes, each corresponding to a distinct key word. The first class will focus on the concept of privilegium and in particular on the singular privilege granted Dante to traverse the territory of the otherworld, immune from the laws of his own construct. The second class will explore the concept of arbitrium in Dante, especially the relationship that judicial discretion and poetic license in his thinking. The third class will turn to the concept of infamia, and ask how Dante’s autobiographical legal disgrace affects the concept of justice in the poem as well as its own defamatory aesthetics. The readings are not extensive but will require close attention to detail.

Readings
Please try to read all the "canti" below. You can find them on the website http://www.danteonline.it/, in Italian and English.
Lesson 1: Inferno, canti 8-9.
Lesson 2: Inferno, canti 13, 32; Purgatorio, canto 27.
Lesson 3: Inferno, canti 15-16; Paradiso, canto 17
I will send you another (very short) reading via email.

Prof. Steinberg's CV:
http://rll.uchicago.edu/faculty/steinberg
http://news.uchicago.edu/profile/justin-steinberg

ESTEBAN CONDE ON LAW AND CINEMA

Dear all,
next week we will enjoy prof. Esteban Conde’s (University of Huelva) classes on “law and cinema”. After a brief introduction on this peculiar strand of the Law and the Humanities movement we will talk about the important issue of censorship.

ABSTRACT
The lectures will introduce the ‘law and cinema’ contemporary scholarship, trying to look critically (from a European perspective) at some of its premises and results.
Therefore we will focus on underline one of the possible intersections between law and films: that of ‘cinema in law’ (or law on cinema). This approach is by far much less attended (and maybe less ‘funny’, more ‘serious’) than the classical ‘law in cinema’ studies or the (amusing and even ‘worrying’) ‘law as cinema/cinema as law’ debates.
More specifically we will tackle some US Supreme Court decisions (and indecisions) to concisely describe the way in which censorship on films has been – constitutionally and legally - formulated in the twentieth century.
The account should serve as an example –and encouragement- for those students interested in the development of similar subjects, which are not necessarily involved with totalitarian regimes or tendencies.
And above all, it is a proposal –and a provocation- concerning the unavoidable (self)analysis about the (individual, social, juridical, economical) limits and burdens of freedom of speech.

READINGS
A)
- The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 98, No.8, “Popular Legal Culture” (June 1989) (“Introduction”, pp. 1545-1558; Lawrence M. Friedman, “Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture”, pp. 1579-1606)

- Stefan Machura/Peter Robson (eds.), Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 28, No. 1, “Law and Film” (March 2001). The “Introduction”, pp.1-8, includes a selected bibliography (1986-1999)

B)

- “Motion Pictures and the First Amendment”, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 60, No. 4. (April 1951), pp. 696-719.
- John Wertheimer, “Mutual Film Reviewed: The Movies, Censorship, and Free Speech in Progressive America”, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1993), pp. 158-189.

Esteban Conde's CV:

Esteban Conde (Barcelona, 1971), Legal Historian (Universities of Barcelona –Autónoma- and now Huelva), received his Ph.D. in Law in 2003. He has written two books (1998, 2006) about the main (and constructive) role played by ‘enlightened’ censorship in Spain, and several articles on police power (its metaphors, tradition and development at the end of the Ancien Régime).
Over the past five years, he has used some interdisciplinary approaches as a tool to teach legal history: literature and law, and more recently cinema and law.

LAW AND MAGIC

This collection of essays has been quoted by prof. Zeno-Zencovich:

C.A. Corcos (ed. by), "Law and Magic. A Collection of Essays", Carolina Acadmic Press, 2010.

"The nearly two dozen studies in this collection explore the very rich ways in which the rule of law and the practice of magic enrich and inform each other. The authors bring both a U.S. and a comparative law perspective while examining areas such as law and religion, criminal law, intellectual property law, the law of evidence, and animal rights. Topics include alchemy in fifteenth-century England, a discussion of how a courtroom is like a magic show, stage hypnotism and the law, Scottish witchcraft trials in the eighteenth century, the question of whether stage magicians can look to intellectual property to protect their rights, tarot card readings and the First Amendment, and an analysis of whether a magician can be qualified as an expert witness under the Federal Rules of Evidence". (http://www.cap-press.com/isbn/9781594603556)

FINAL EXAM: ALL INFORMATION

Dear all,

the final exam will take place on Monday, the 30th of May, in room 7 at 10:00 am. You will have to answer 2 questions on the 2 topics you liked best. There will be a list of questions (1 or 2 on each topic) among which you will have to choose the ones you prefer to answer. See you next week with prof. Conde's classes!

VINCENZO ZENO-ZENCOVICH ON LAW AND/AS SUPERSTITION

Plutarch (46-127 A.D.), who wrote an essay on superstition

Dear all,
tomorrow prof. Zeno-Zencovich, who teaches comparative law in our faculty, will introduce us to the fascinating topic of the connections between law and superstition. You can find a little abstract below:


Abstract:

Law is considered the opposite - intellectually and culturally - of superstition. Over the ages lawyers have fought - and are still fighting -to free society from superstitions, which often are at the origin of violence, crimes, discriminations. But this battle is far from being won, and, on the contrary, superstition creeps into the practices of lawyers and the law is often used as a form of modern superstition. The class intends to analyse the following aspects:

1) The law and rule-making process as a product of superstitionary beliefs.

2) Superstitionary use of scientific evidence by lawyers.

3) Justice and superstition.

4) The rules of superstition.

Prof. Zeno-Zencovich CV:

http://www.giur.uniroma3.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=89

Your ID card

Dear all,

please don't forget to bring a document (ID card, passport, etc.) in case they will check your identity before entering the Court of Cassation!

April 28th 2011: Midterm Exam

Dear all,

the date of the midterm exam is finally approaching. You have to bring only a pen: I will provide you with sheets. You won't be allowed to use the vocabulary! You will have to BRIEFLY answer some questions about the classes you had until now. The questions will be quite general but it is obvious that you have to read the articles and your notes before the 28th. You dont need to register.

See you in room 4 at 10:00 am.

Court of Cassation: Here we are!

Dear all,
I hope you are enjoying this last day of the Easter Holydays! This is the final list of the students that are going to visit our Supreme Court. As you know, we’ll meet at 9:45 at the entrance in Piazza dei Tribunali. See you there!

1. Antonelli Roberta

2. Avvisati Maria Lisa

3. Baliva Giulia

4. Corsetti Claudio

5. D’Alessio Paolo

6. De Prosperis Sara

7. Di Florio Cristina

8. Di Giacomantonio Moira

9. Di Lorenzi Giordano

10. Di Silvestro Monica

11. Ercoli Francesco

12. Esti Dante

13. Favilli Valentina

14. Gialdroni Stefania

15. Gulli Federica

16. Ingrosso Francesca

17. Lopez Corallina

18. Margarita Enrica

19. Morigi Silvia

20. Natalini Francesca

21. Papi Luigi

22. Picone Lisa

23. Pucci Francesca

24. Roberto Michela

25. Roggenkamper Daniel

26. Tammert Christian

27. Tosto Luca

28. Vuerich Giordana

Court of Cassation: Last List

Dear all,
the Secretary of the Court of Cassation has authorized our visit! We'll meet our guide at the entrance in Piazza dei Tribunali (the side of the building in front of the river) at 10:00 am on April the 26th. Please come 15 minutes earlier! We will have also the opportunity to visit the important Court's Library.
Some of you have registred only during the last days (Giordano Di Lorenzi, Luca Tosto, Corallina Lopez, Dante Esti, Lisa Picone and Claudio Corsetti). I hope that they will be admitted but I have to wait for the reply of the Court's Secretary. I'll let you know during the next days on the blog. I'm very happy that you enjoyed prof. Watt's classes and I am looking forward to hearing directly your comments. See you soon!

This is the list of students that asked to participate (Moira, sorry for the mistake of the previous list) :

1. Antonelli Roberta

2. Avvisati Maria Luisa

3. Baliva Giulia

4. D’Alessio Paolo

5. De Prosperis Sara

6. Di Florio Cristina

7. Di Giacomantonio Moira

8. Di Silvestro Monica

9. Ercoli Francesco

10. Favilli Valentina

11. Gialdroni Stefania

12. Gulli Federica

13. Ingrosso Francesca

14. Margarita Enrica

15. Morigi Silvia

16. Natalini Francesca

17. Papi Luigi

18. Pucci Federica

19. Roberto Michela

20. Roggenkamper Daniel

21. Tammert Christian

22. Vuerich Giordana

NEW ENTRIES
23. Corsetti Claudio
24. Di Lorenzi Giordano
25. Esti Dante
26. Lopez Corallina
27. Picone Lisa
28. Tosto Luca

Visit to the Court of Cassation: List of participants

Dear all, this is the list of participants to the visit of the Court of Cassation. If you still want to join in, please leave your FULL name as a comment to this post. I am still waiting for the reply of the Court's secretary, so...incrociamo le dita! I'll let you know during the next days.

1. Antonelli Roberta

2. Avvisati Maria Luisa

3. Baliva Giulia

4. D’Alessio Paolo

5. De Prosperis Sara

6. Di Florio Cristina

7. Di Giacomantonio Giulia

8. Di Silvestro Monica

9. Ercoli Francesco

10. Favilli Valentina

11. Gialdroni Stefania

12. Gulli Federica

13. Ingrosso Francesca

14. Margarita Enrica

15. Morigi Silvia

16. Natalini Francesca

17. Papi Luigi

18. Pucci Federica

19. Roberto Michela

20. Roggenkamper Daniel

21. Tammert Christian

22. Vuerich Giordana

GARY WATT ON LAW & ARCHITECTURE, ICONOGRAPHY AND THEATRE

Dear all,

please read carefully the very detailed description of next week's lectures: this will be a very interesting as well as engaging week!

Seminar One:

Wednesday April 13^th 2011 13: 45 - 15:45

“Foundations: architectural and horticultural metaphors of law and society”

“A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect”. Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (1815)

“In that jurisdiction precedes law, in that it marks the point of entry into the juridical sphere and speech, it has to be visible in advance of utterance and hence must be a property of communal space, of the architecture of the institution, of context and vestment that can be apprehended prior to any discursive intervention in the name of legality.” Peter Goodrich, “Visive Powers: Colours, Trees and Genres of Jurisdiction” (2008) 2(2) Law and Humanities 213–231, 214.

“Civilisations cannot be built mechanistically – there must be art as well as science. Where the stones of law are stubborn we must turn to the art of equity. If law is the mason’s art of producing rectilinear stones from the bedrock of nature, equity is the sculptor’s art of revealing the human form from within the rectilinear stone. As the great American jurist, Judge Learned Hand, once said: ‘the work of a judge is an art…[i]t is what a poet does, it is what a sculptor does’” G Watt, Equity Stirring: The Story of Justice Beyond the Law (2009) “law matters because of death and time and our care for others. Like architecture or language, it is part of the work of cultures which seeks to reach across time, and beyond life” - Desmond Manderson, ‘Desert Island Discs (Ten reveries on pedagogy in law and the humanities)’ (2008) 2(2) Law and Humanities 255–270, 270.

Preparation: Identify an architectural or horticultural metaphor employed in the legal language of Italy or elsewhere – and come prepared to discuss it. (For a general introduction to the dominance of metaphors in US legal language, read Bernard J. Hibbitts, “Making Sense of Metaphors: Visuality, Aurality, and the Reconfiguration of American Legal Discourse”, 16 Cardozo L. Rev. 229 (1994) (accessible at http://faculty.law.pitt.edu/hibbitts/meta_con.htm))

Seminar Outline: We will consider the significance to legal language of the architectural metaphors, including the metaphors of “the rule” and “the level ground”. We will also critically examine the following two quotes which use architectural metaphors to explain “equity”: “The formall cause of Equity is the matching and levelling of facts falling out, and the circumstances thereof, with the rules of the Law, as buildings are framed to carpenters lines and squares...Not unfitly is Equity termed the rule of manners: for as by a rule the faults of a building are so discovered, so doth equity judge aright, both of the written law, and also of all mens actions and behaviours: and therefore such as are ministers of Justice, apply and frame their judgments, after the square and rule of good and legal, that is to say, of God’s Law, and the Lawes of Nature”

- William West, Symboleography (1593) “When the law speaks universally, then, and a case arises on it which is not covered by the universal statement, then it is right, where the legislator fails us and has erred by oversimplicity, to correct the omission-to say what the legislator himself would have said had he been present, and would have put into his law if he had known. Hence the equitable is just, and better than one kind of justice-not better than absolute justice but better than the error that arises from the absoluteness of the statement. And this is the nature of the equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. In fact this is the reason why all things are not determined by law, that about some things it is impossible to lay down a law, so that a decree is needed. For when the thing is indefinite the rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts.”

- Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics, Book V chapter 10

In addition, we will consider the significance of the “horticultural” metaphor for law.

Seminar Two:

Thursday 14^th April 2011 10:00 - 11:45

“Honoré Daumier and the Moving Image of Law”

“a painter so mighty, that no terms can exaggerate the greatness of his importance”. - Julius Meier-Graefe (Florence Simmonds, trans.)

“Dictus et Amphion, Thebanae conditor arcis, Saxa movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda Ducere quo vellet. Fuit haec sapientia quondam, Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis…leges incidere lingo”.

Horace, De Arte Poetica

[Amphion too, the builder of the Theban wall, was said to give the stones motion with the sound of his lyre, and to lead them -whithersoever he would, by engaging persuasion. This was deemed wisdom of yore, to distinguish the public from private weal, things sacred from things profane…to engrave laws on tables of wood.

This seminar, based on an annotated slideshow of the life and art of Honoré Daumier (1808-1879), is an exploration of the artist’s remarkable power to reveal human motivations and to move his viewers through images which for the most part were lithographic caricatures and therefore quite literally “set in stone”. Focusing on his representation of the legal profession, we discover that Daumier’s project was to present the theatrical show of law – complete with chiaroscuro lighting, costume, stage, props, gestural rhetoric and, most significant of all, a director’s insight into what motivates the actors.

Preparation:

• 
  
  Access Daumier lithographs: the human comedy on Google Books (see page 4 on chiaroscuro).


• 
  
  Look up the subject of “lawyers” at http://dcoll.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/5/browse?type=subject

• 
  
  Bring a picture (by any artist) demonstrating chiaroscuro and be prepared to discuss its symbolic significance to the law.


• 
  
  Read the extract from the editorial to (2008) 3(1) Law and Humanities (set out below).

Seminar Outline: We will discuss the significance of the chiaroscuro images you have found, and some others that I will bring to the seminar. Are you familiar with the phrases “black letter law” and “bright line rule”? Is anything in nature black and white? Is the law? Be prepared to produce your own chiaroscuro study of the law – materials will be supplied! Gary Watt on law, architecture and the art of chiaroscuro in the work of Honoré Daumier, from the Editorial to 3(1) Law and Humanities (2008): “Daumier’s work exhibits a complete mastery of composition, line, tone and – when used, which was relatively seldom – colour. A distinctive feature of much of his work is the bold use of chiaroscuro (or clair-obscur), which is the use of dark shadow and bright light to produce dramatic tonal contrast. This feature is the foundation for many of his greatest oil paintings - including Le Lutteur (1852-53); Les Deux Avocats (1855-7); L’Homme à la corde (1858-60); La Laveuse (1860-1) and Crispin et Scapin (1863-5) – and, of course, it is an almost universal feature of his caricatures, which were for the most part executed exclusively in black-and-white monochrome – or as we might term it nowadays, “greyscale”. One can attribute Daumier’s fascination with lawyers to many sources – including the fact that he was employed (at the age of twelve or thirteen) to act as a runner for a notary or bailiff in Paris and the fact that, around the same time, his father is said to have been a frequent visitor to the courts on account of his troubled business affairs – but whatever captured his artistic imagination, it was surely the singular contrast between lawyers’ white collars and black robes that captivated his artistic eye. In the introduction to the English language publication of Les Gens de Justice, Julien Cain notes that “Daumier saw this ‘magic lantern of black figures’ performed before his very eyes” (Les Gens de Justice (New York: Tudor Publishing, 1959) page 13). As for the deeply sardonic critique of lawyers that emerges through his work, that may be attributable to his republican – essentially revolutionary – political outlook, and to the fact that he was imprisoned in his early twenties for his caricature Gargantua (1831). This caricature depicts the last king to rule in France - Louis-Philippe I, so-called “King of the French” – seated on a commode throne continually “issuing” favours whilst being continually fed by the bourgeoisie.... Daumier deserves his place in the pantheon of Law and Humanities, because he exemplifies the central aim of the whole project – which is to cast external scholarly or artistic illumination upon law and lawyers. But do Daumier’s caricatures cast too bright a light? Is his clair too brilliant, with the result that his obscur is too dark, too cynical? We do not think so. If there is an extremism to Daumier’s caricatures, it is attributable to a great extent to the somewhat journalist context in which those works appeared. There was also the need to ensure that the work was attractive to the editors and to the paying public. Surprising as it may seem to us, Daumier sometimes struggled to have certain pieces accepted – even, and perhaps especially, towards the end of his career. Despite this, the passionate humanity of the man is clear from his caricatures – his depiction of the lawyer leaving court with a tearful widow and her “orphan” child achieves pity and avoids sentimentality. The picture is so well drawn, the legend accompanying it in Les Gens de Justice is otiose: “Vous avez perdu votre procès c'est vrai ..... mais vous avez du éprouver bien du plaisir à m’entendre plaider”. This caricature appears as plate number 35 in Les Gens de Justice (see Stone number 1371: www.daumier.org), and to conclude we will briefly consider the plate that immediately follows it. Plate 36 (Stone number 1372: www.daumier.org) depicts the grand staircase leading up to the Palais de Justice, which still stands at the heart of Paris on the Île de la Cité. Walking down the staircase are two lawyers, a few steps apart, each nursing a bundle of documents under his left arm. Each lawyer is looking straight ahead in full-frontal profile; faces devoid of passion, almost without expression – most un-Daumier-like. Their black robes drop straight, their white official scarves – an elongated version of what English barristers call “tabs” - hang from their collars rigidly perpendicular, as if starched. The plate carries the legend “Grand escalier du Palais de justice. Vue de faces”. The humour is as understated as was the pathos of the previous plate. The reference is architectural: here, in the language of architects, is a “front profile of the grand staircase”, and here – in the shape of lawyers – are two cold and rigid men of stone. The fact that the plate is itself a lithograph– and was therefore set in stone – adds a further dimension to the metaphor...Plate 36 was apparently based on an earlier wood engraving (1836), which is a pleasing metaphor for the way in which the law begins in nature before it is set in stone, but the evolution of the work does not end there. Daumier revisited the image around 1865 in the form of a mixed media work (charcoal, soft pencil, ink, watercolour and gouache on paper). The later version is entitled Le Grand escalier du Palais de justice. The pronoun “le” has been added, and the concluding clause “Vue de faces” has been removed. Accordingly, there is, on this occasion, no attempt to repeat the architectural joke. The composition of the picture broadly corresponds to the earlier lithograph, but there are significant differences. There is only one lawyer walking down the stairs, but that is not especially significant. What is significant is the fact that the lawyer is clearly moving – his hat is soft and sitting somewhat askew, his robes are flowing, his white scarf is ruffled and shifting and his feet can be seen stepping down the stairs, whereas before we did not see them. And there, on his chest, near his heart, is the smallest square of red – the ribbon of la Légion d’honneur. Apart from this small patch of red, the picture is grey or thinly washed in pale pink and yellow. There is hope in this image. The stone cold lawyer has moved. The colourless lawyer has a spark of passion in his heart. His face is still aloof but he is moving, and he is walking down from his lofty place, and he might just be walking towards humanity”.

Seminar Three:

Friday 15^th April 2011 10:00 - 11:45

"Law, Performance and the Sign of Blood"

Preparation:

• 
  
  Please bring a quotation from any theatrical drama (in any language and of any era) in which the physical stain of blood is linked to a legal theme.


• 
  
  Read Act 3 scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – especially Antony’s funeral oration in the Roman forum. (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/julius_caesar.3.2.html)
  
  

Seminar Outline:

We will consider how blood is used in theatre to signify legal crisis, especially where the conflict is between the law of state and the laws of nature and the divine. We will demonstrate this through attention to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Sophocles’ Antigone. In Shakespeare’s play, Brutus appears, at first, to believe in a law of blood that is deeper than the law of the State, but his appeal to Roman blood is actually devoted to the political idea of Rome rather than to any personal notion of kinship. He is the dramatic descendant of King Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone, who placed the laws of the polis (the “city-State”) above any bond of familial blood. Brutus confirms that he would prefer to avoid bloodshed if there were any way to slay the spirit of Caesar, but alas “In the spirit of man there is no blood” and “Caesar must bleed for it!” (2.1.168-171). Brutus calls the conspirators to “dismember” Caesar; to cut him down to size. He acknowledges that he is plotting a performance for which there must be blood - for the issue of blood is inevitable where laws of family and friendship are made to conform to the laws of State; as Brutus acknowledges (in retrospect): “Did not great Julius bleed for Justice’s sake?” (4.3.21). In his oration at Caesar’s funeral, Mark Antony appropriates Brutus’ rhetoric of blood and turns it against him. At the climax of his speech, just before he reveals Caesar’s bloody corpse, he surveys Caesar’s bloody clothing wound by wound:

“Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:

See what a rent the envious Casca made:

Through this, the well-belovèd Brutus stabbed,

And as he plucked his cursèd steel away,

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it,

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved

If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no,

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel, -

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. -

This was the most unkindest cut of all.” (3.2.171-180)

Antony appeals to higher laws than the law of the State. He appeals to the law of blood and the law of the gods. The appeal to the gods is obvious. The appeal to the law of blood is more subtle. Antony accuses Brutus of putting ephemeral matters of State before a kindred duty to Caesar, who was like a father to him. The repeated reference to Brutus’ “unkindness” is designed to emphasise his disobedience to the law of kindred blood. The description “most unkindest” is effective as an impassioned tortologous double-superlative, but it makes most sense if we understand “unkindest” to mean “not the sort of thing that should occur between kin”. Sophocles’ Antigone likewise considers the perpetual and unalterable laws of life, death and blood to be more fundamental than temporary laws of State and to be more fundamental, even, than laws governing the legal status of marriage:

“Had I had children or their father dead,

I’d let them moulder. I should not have chosen

In such a case to cross the State’s decree.

What is the law that lies behind these words?

One husband gone, I might have found another,

or a child from a new man in first child's place,

but with my parents hid away in death,

no brother, ever, could spring up for me.

Such was the law by which I honoured you.” (900-920)

Prof. Watt's CV:

Gary Watt (b. 1969) is a graduate of New College, Oxford University, and a qualified Solicitor (non-practising). He is currently an Associate Professor and Reader in Law at the University of Warwick, having joined Warwick Law School in 1999. Since 2005 he has also been a visiting professor in comparative common law at the Université René Descartes (Paris 5) and since 2004 he has been one of the editors of the Mortgage group in the Project for a Common Core of European Private Law based at the Università di Trento. Gary is a passionate advocate for scholarship and teaching in the various fields of law and humanities and is one of the two founding editors of Law and Humanities (Oxford, Hart publishing) - the first UK-based journal dedicated to the examination of law by the lights of humanities’ disciplines. He is the co-editor of Shakespeare and the Law (Oxford, Hart publishing, 2008) and the author of numerous books, chapters and articles, including Trusts and Equity (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) (currently in 3rd edition, 2008) and a forthcoming book on law and literature: Equity Stirring: The Story of Justice Beyond Law (Oxford, Hart publishing, 2009). He has also co-written for BBC Radio 3's Between the Ears strand with ‘Prix Italia’ winner Antony Pitts. Gary’s enthusiasm for his subjects (and for teaching them) has led to invitations to deliver lectures and seminars in places as diverse as Hong Kong, the US, Italy, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Gary was named UK “Law Teacher of the Year” in 2009.