Even though Slavoj Zizek and someone like Graham Harman are diametrically in opposing camps, there is something I've discovered along the way. Harman is an avid reader of Zizek even if he opposes his base line materialism. You can find scattered throughout his oeuvre references to Zizek's works from Tool-Being onwards. I often wondered why he was so interested in Zizek, and confronted the ideas Zizek upheld.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’m currently at Stetson University’s School of Law participating in the Law and Rhetoric Colloquium and it’s a remarkable facility. If you’re an applicant and looking for somewhere to apply that features amazing facilities (1920s era resort hotel, pool, gym, etc.), I’d recommend Stetson. Of course there are great faculty here and more generally worse places to be than Gulfport, Florida. It’s certainly worth the visit and treatment and accommodations have been superb. Back to the palm trees and birds… and law and rhetoric of course.
Posted in law, law professors, law school | Tags: Gulfport, Law, Nick J. Sciullo, rhetoric, Stetson Law School. law and rhetoric, Stetson University
Reblogged from Seeker of Truth:
Dénouement: the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work; the outcome of a complex sequence of events; the end result
Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.
Posted in blogging, education, English | Tags: 19th Century, blogs, Edgar Allen Poe, English, English literature, literature, Poe, The Raven
"There are thousands of people out there living lives of quiet, screaming desperation, working long, hard hours, at jobs they hate, to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like." -Nigel Marsh
I recently found the show “Horders.” I’ve been fascinated with TV shows about individuals afflicted with obsessive-compusive disorders manifesting as a need to gather and retain physical objects, even far beyond the point of any reasonable ability to store the objects.
Posted in blogging, democracy, politics | Tags: Law, philosophy, property, rights, the commons
Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, has received much applause since it’s release two years ago, but now it seems that some are questioning Alexander’s take on mass incarceration, law, and race. The debate has taken place across sources and discplines. Here are some links that present critical interpretations (not necessarily condemnations) of Alexander’s book:
I reviewed the book favorably for the Texas Law Review Dicta and also suggested that if fit into a larger discussion of prison politics and critical penology. I also note several minor problems with the text.
James Forman has been at the forefront of scholars more critical of her work. His New York University Law Review and book review in the Boston Review both present compelling arguments.
C.S. Malerich has a new review of the book, notable primarily because it was completed so long after the book was published. Malerich gives it 5 of 5 stars.
The Huffington Post Live presented a new post suggesting that The New Jim Crow might be over.
I’d be interested in your opinions.
Posted in book review, law, law professors, Nick J. Sciullo, politics, poverty, race | Tags: criminology, James Forman, Law, mass incarceration, Michelle Alexander, Nick J. Sciullo, prison, race, racism, The New Jim Crow
Prim@ Facie – No. 21 – Legal Education Graduate Program of Law at UFPB http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/primafacie
SPECIAL ISSUE on LEGAL EDUCATION
Prim@ Facie calls for submissions of scholarly papers dealing with legal education: current trends, challenges and crises.
The deadline is January 10th, 2013.
Thank you for your interest in publishing in our journal. We always appreciate to receive material from potential new contributers, in particular, from abroad.
Papers should be submitted in accordance with the author guidelines available at: http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/primafacie/information/authors.
As the Planning Committee will use a blind review process, an online submission system has been set up. It requires you to create an account for signing in. Please go to http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/primafacie/issue/current.
We deeply regret that the submission system operates only partially in English. We are fixing the problem. In case of any doubt, please feel free contact the Planning Committee:
Dr. Gustavo Rabay Guerra gustavorabay@gmail.com
Dra. Maria Creusa Borges mcaborges@gmail.com
Editor-in-chief – Dr. Armando Albuquerque editorpfacie@dci.ccsa.ufpb.br
 |
Universidade Federal da Paraíba Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Jurídicas/CCJ Cidade Universitária-Campus I João Pessoa, Paraíba – Brasil 58059-900 Email: editorpfacie@dci.ccsa.ufpb.br Visit the website at http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/primafacie |
Posted in call for papers, law, law school | Tags: Brasil, Brazil, Call for Papers, cfp, Law, law school, Nick J. Sciullo, pedagogy, prima facie
Mark Danner has written an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books entitled, “The Politics of Fear.” From the beginning of the review:
Amid the clamorous controversies of this election campaign, what strikes one here on the West Bank of the Jordan is the silences. Though the issue of Palestine promises to have a much more vital part in the volatile, populist politics of the Middle East’s new democracies—whose vulnerable governments actually must take some account of what moves ordinary people—here in Ramallah we have heard virtually nothing substantive about it, apart, that is, from Mitt Romney’s repeated charge that President Obama, presumably in extracting from Israel a hard-fought ten-month freeze on settlement building early on in his administration, had “thrown Israel under the bus.”
Check out Philosophy & Theology, a blog by J. Leavitt Pearl (Ph.D. student in Theology at Duquesne University). He’s following me, so others should follow him. Great writing over there. And, who doesn’t love anything to do with Pittsburgh?
The Blah Blah Blog is following Law, Rhetoric, & Debate. If you like (or hate) grammar, check her out.
Ephraim Percy Kenyanito at The Diary of a Global Citizen is also following. If you’re interested in East Africa, world citizenship, travel, or poetry; it’s worth more than a few clicks.
And, last, but certainly not least, one of my very own GSU debaters has a blog where she seems to post the same randomness she shares in squad meetings. She’s hilarious and her blog is too. Check Megan out at Uncharted Journeys of a Lost Girl.
Posted in blogging, continental philosophy, debate, fun, politics, religion, society, The Internet | Tags: Blah Blah Blog, blogging, blogs, Duquesne University, East Africa, GSU Debate, J. Leavitt Pearl, Nick J. Sciullo, philosophy, religion, The Diary of a Global Citizen, theology, travel, Uncharted Journeys of a Lost Girl
Erin M. Presley (Eastern Kentucky University – Department of English and Theater) has published a review of an edited collection by Carol P. Haviland and Joan A. Mullin entitled “Who Owns This Text? Plagiarism, Authorship, and Disciplinary Cultures” in the Fall 2012 edition of Kairos. From the review:
“[T]his study challenged faculty members from a variety of disciplines—including computer science, sociology and archaeology, the biological sciences, the visual arts, and university administration—to think about their own ideas about ownership….”
The NYRB has a new review article, by John Gray, reviewing Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialetical Materialism and Living in the End Times. From the article:
Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than the Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek. The financial and economic crisis has demonstrated the fragility of the free market system that its defenders believed had triumphed in the cold war; but there is no sign of anything resembling the socialist project that in the past was seen by many as embodying capitalism’s successor. Žižek’s work, which reflects this paradoxical situation in a number of ways, has made him one of the world’s best-known public intellectuals.
If you’re interested in environmental law or administrative law, you should check out the new Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law. There are many great articles available and the editors also post regular comments on the website with an open forum for your comments. Articles are available for download in PDF format, for free. The reason for the journal found in the fine opening essay in the first issue can be found here.
Ever have that moment where you can’t find your Bluebook? When it’s in the office and you’re writing on the coach? When you loaned it to a friend and that friend happened to take it to another state? Great news! The Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington has an excellent website, updated as of June 27, 2012, with abbreviations for the vast majority of law reviews. It’s a great asset, I’d bookmark it.
Posted in law, law professors, law review articles, law school | Tags: Bluebook, citation, Gallagher Law Library, law reviews, Nick J. Sciullo, scholarship, websites
The journal of the Alabama Communication Association, Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, edited by Brett Lunceford, has released a new issue. In this issue there is a focus on politics. Articles discuss rhetoric and religion in politics, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Obama. Check them out!
Slavoj Zizek has been interviewed in The Guardian this past weekend. Check out the interview here. An excerpt that seems typically Zizekian:
There is something inexplicably touching about all Žižek’s mischievous bombast. I hadn’t expected him to be so likable, but he really is hilariously good company. I had hoped to find out if he was a genius or a lunatic – but I fear I leave none the wiser. I ask him how seriously he would recommend we take him, and he says he would rather be feared than taken for a clown. ”Most people think I’m making jokes, exaggerating – but no, I’m not. It’s not that. First I tell jokes, then I’m serious. No, the art is to bring the serious message into the forum of jokes.”
Posted in continental philosophy, politics, society | Tags: Decca Aitkenhead, Hegel, interviews, Less Than Nothing, Nick J. Sciullo, sex, Slavoj Zizek, The Guardian
the crit has produced its summer 2012 issue available here. This issue features articles by Daniel Hornal, Jean Mattimoe, Nikki Smith, and Louis E. Wolcher. This looks to be another quality issue from the fine folks at the University of Idaho College of Law. If you haven’t checked out the crit, do so.
The Albany Government Law Review recently published issues on Abraham Lincoln and an issue, available on Lexis but not yet available on the Review’s website, about Law and Baseball.
The Lincoln issue and articles are available here (scroll down to Vol. 3, No. 2). You may have come across these articles already, but they are worth at least a skim if you have not.
The baseball symposium is available here (articles available shortly).
Both should be of interest to readers of this blog, and if not, oh well. There’s some interesting and provocative scholarship in both issues.
James O. Ward (independent scholar) has published Reading Machiavelli Rhetorically: The Prince as Covert Critique of the Renaissance Prince (California Italian Studies, Vol. 2, no. 2, 2011). Here is the abstract:
In this essay, classical rhetorical theory is applied to show that Machiavelli’s Prince was not intended as advice for a prince, nor as “political science,” but rather as a very subtle, but nevertheless powerful, critique of the Italian princes of his day, the Medici included. While not a new reading of the text (the notion of the Prince as a crypto-republican work goes back even before the
Enlightenment to the very first years of its appearance), this article places such an interpretation on the firm base of rhetorical theory together with a close reading of the text. Classical rhetorical theory will thus be seen to be a powerful tool in the proper understanding of the text, a line of approach continuing the already important work of the past twenty years, which seeks to restore an appreciation of the fundamentally rhetorical nature of Machiavelli’s literary technique and political thought. From this examination of the text against the background of rhetorical theory, one of the perennially vexing questions in the interpretation of Machiavelli’s political thought–how to reconcile the apparently “princely” counsels of the Prince with the republican sentiments expressed in Machiavelli’s other writings–can finally be resolved.
The Journal of Occupied Studies (yes it’s a real magazine/journal) is a really well designed website with great articles related to the Occupy Movements. I am both mesmerized by the beautiful website and by the content on the pages. Check out Communicability & the Police for an example. Have fun exploring the articles!
