Dinner Law & Humanities 2012

Law and Architecture is developing!

Look at these very recent publications!
Linda Mulchay, Legal Architecture. Justice, Due Process and the Place of Law, Abingdon, 2011.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415575393/

Legal Architecture addresses how the environment of the trial can be seen as a physical expression of our relationship with ideals of justice. It provides an alternative account of the trial, which charts the troubled history of notions of due process and participation. In contrast to visions of judicial space as neutral, Linda Mulcahy argues that understanding the factors that determine the internal design of the courthouse and courtroom are crucial to a broader and more nuanced understanding of the trial. Partitioning of the courtroom into zones and the restriction of movement within it are the result of turf wars about who can legitimately participate in the legal arena and call the judiciary to account. The gradual containment of the public, the increasing amount of space allocated to advocates, and the creation of dedicated space for journalists and the jury, all have complex histories that deserve attention. But these issues are not only of historical significance. Across jurisdictions, questions are now being asked about the internal configurations of the courthouse and courtroom, and whether standard designs meet the needs of modern participatory democracies: including questions about the presence and design of the modern dock; the ways in which new technologies threaten to change the dynamics of the trial and lead to the dematerialization of our primary site of adversarial practice; and the extent to which courthouses are designed in ways which realise their professed status as public spaces. This fascinating and original reflection on legal architecture will be of interest to socio-legal or critical scholars working in the field of legal geography, legal history, criminology, legal systems, legal method, evidence, human rights and architecture.

Francesco De Angelis, Spaces of Justice in the Roman World, Leiden/Boston, 2010

http://www.brill.nl/spaces-justice-roman-world

Despite the crucial role played by both law and architecture in Roman culture, the Romans never developed a type of building that was specifically and exclusively reserved for the administration of justice: courthouses did not exist in Roman antiquity. The present volume addresses this paradox by investigating the spatial settings of Roman judicial practices from a variety of perspectives. Scholars of law, topography, architecture, political history, and literature concur in putting Roman judicature back into its concrete physical context, exploring how the exercise of law interacted with the environment in which it took place, and how the spaces that arose from this interaction were perceived by the ancients themselves. The result is a fresh view on a key aspect of Roman culture.

Law and History: Ricostruire il passato per costruire il futuro. Storia e memoria nel prisma del diritto

Dear students,
maybe you will be interested in this great event, which will take place in our University on the 31st of May (2:30 pm) and on the 1st of June 2012 (9:30 am).

Ricostruire il passato per costruire il futuro: storia e memoria nel prisma del diritto

Giovedì 31 Maggio (ore 14.30) e venerdì 1 Giugno (ore 9.30) 2012
Facoltà di Giurisprudenza, Aula del Consiglio
via Ostiense 159 Roma

Il convegno Ricostruire il passato per costruire il futuro: storia e memoria nel prisma del diritto è una iniziativa realizzata con il contributo della Fondazione “Centro di Iniziativa Giuridica Piero Calamandrei” e del Ministero dei Beni Culturali nell’ambito del PRIN-Progetto di ricerca di interesse nazionale “Le ferite della storia e il diritto riparatore” ed è promosso da: Università Roma Tre, Università di Bari Aldo Moro, Università di Napoli Federico II, Università del Salento.

In maniera crescente si assiste negli ultimi anni ad un processo di “giuridificazione” della storia, intesa sia come eventi ritenuti memorabili, sia come attività di ricerca su di essi.
Nel primo convegno di questo PRIN l’attenzione era stata focalizzata sui modi attraverso i quali il diritto viene invocato ed applicato per riparare le ferite, individuali e collettive, arrecate da vicende storiche. In questo incontro conclusivo l’obiettivo è quello di rafforzare il dialogo inter-disciplinare muovendo dalla storia del diritto verso un “diritto della storia”.
Sotto questo aspetto dallo studio del passato emergono importanti lezioni per il giurista che non intenda essere solo spettatore nell’antico, e attualissimo, dibattito sull’uso pubblico della storia.

Programma:
Giovedì 31 maggio
Ore 14.30 - Introduzione: La giuridificazione della storia
Giorgio Resta, Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich
Ore 15 - L’accesso alle informazioni
Paola Carucci- “I custodi della memoria: la disciplina degli archivi e la ricerca storica”
Miguel Gotor- “La storia sotto chiave: il segreto di stato e il terrorismo”
Discussant: Emanuele Conte
Ore 16.30 - I limiti alla libertà dello storico
Bernard Beignier- “I diritti della personalità”
Olivier Cayla- “La verità”
Discussant: Giuseppe Tucci
Ore 18 - Lo storico in tribunale
Paolo Pezzino- “Lo storico come consulente”
Antonino Intelisano- “Giustizia e storia: metodologie a confronto”
Discussant: Cristina Vano

Venerdì 1 giugno
Ore 9.30 - Gli usi pubblici della storia
Filippo Focardi- “Rielaborare il passato. Usi pubblici della storia e della memoria in Italia dopo la prima Repubblica”
Mario Morcellini- “La costruzione mediatica dei processi “storici”
Antoon De Baets- “History of the censorship of history, 1945 – present”
Luigi Nuzzo- “Memoria del passato e costruzione delle tradizioni: il caso del derecho indiano”
Discussants: Umberto Breccia, Raffaele De Giorgi
ore 12 - Conclusioni
Aldo Mazzacane- “Dalla storia del diritto al diritto della storia”
Stefano Rodotà- “Un diritto alla verità?”

Per inscrizioni inviare una mail a mcolangelo@uniroma3.it

Relazioni, materiali, link e bibliografia del PRIN sono sul sito
https://www.sites.google.com/site/storiaediritto/home
Per informazioni:
Margherita Colangelo
tel. 06 57332504 mcolangelo@uniroma3.it
https://www.sites.google.com/site/storiaediritto/home

http://www.giur.uniroma3.it/?q=node/15074 

Exam on June 1st 2012: timetable

Dear all,

I would like to inform you that prof. Conte decided to start the exams on June 1st 2012 at 8:30 am, in order to be able to examine you all. 26 students registred and they will be interviewed according to the following timetable (the exam will be short and quite informal! We have to start with the letter M):

8:30-10:30

1. Maciariello Lorenzo
2. Masini Lavinia
3. Micarelli Serena
4. Mieli Andrea David
5. Mieli Micol
6. Norzi Carlo Alberto
7. Passeri Leoni Luca
8. Pedata Martina
9. Pizzari Lucia
10. Rheinbay Florian Markus

14:00-16:00

11. Scioli Aessandro
12. Sebastiani Martina
13. Stefanini Beatrice
14. Veroheven Clement
15. Woeste Carolin
16. Yang Qingya
17. Andres Matthias
18. Bussoletti Ludovica
19. Cencelli Chiara
20. Cesario Elena
21. Cordeschi Ilaria

16:15-17:15

22. Droege Rudolf
23. Fanelli Lorenzo
24. Ferrauti Chiara
25. Gaudino Benedetto Loris
26. Koch Kai

About the final exam

Dear all,
just to be sure you have understood how the exam works: there will be a question about each topic or, if you prefer, a question related to each speaker. That means that there will be several questions on law and literature: on the movement in general (Skeel) on Dante (Steinberg) on Legal humanism (Decock), etc. I am sure you will find your favourite topics among the questions. I have prepared 13 questions and you have to choose your favourite 2.
No vocabularies or notes admitted!
See you tomorrow

LAW AND MUSIC: THE PICTURES

Dear all, I finally publish some pictures of our last 2 classes on Law and Music, taught by Prof. Giorgio Resta and M° Enrico Maria Polimanti. In one picture (the last one) you can see also Francesco Giammusso, the composer whose music was performed by M° Polimanti. Two pictures were taken by your collegue Elena Forzano.

FINAL EXAM

Dear all,

as you know, the final written exam will take place on Thursday, May 24th at 10:00. You will have to answer 2 questions among a list of questions on each topic of the course, starting from the very beginning (prof. Skeel). You have thus to study deeply only two topics (and don't forget the readings!). In addition, you will have to come on one of the following official dates for the oral exam, which will consist in a discussion about the course.

June 1st, 2012: 10:30 am
June 25th, 2012: 10:30 am
July 16th, 2012: 10:30 am
September 3rd, 2012: 10:30 am
September 25th, 2012: 10:30 am

The sooner, the better

Everyone (also the Erasmus students) has to register as for every other exam.

IL CONTRIBUTO DI LAW AND HUMANITIES NELLA FORMAZIONE DEL GIURISTA

Who wants to go to Benevento? There is a very interesting conference on Law and Humanities on the 31st May-1st June 2012!

Programma31 maggio 2012
ore 15.00 – 17.00

Presiede
Pietro PERLINGIERI, Emerito (Università del Sannio)

Relazione introduttivaLuigi LOMBARDI VALLAURI, Emerito (Università di Firenze); I 5 libri della mia vita. Letteratura e filosofia come ispirazioni dell'atto politico-giuridico
Jacinto NELSON DE MIRANDA COUTINHO (Universidade Federal do Paraná): Insegnamento just-in-time
Anna Maria CAMPANALE (Università di Foggia), Dalla spada al cerchio di gessoAntonello CIERVO (Università di Perugia) e ALBERTO VESPAZIANI, Direttivo ISLL (Università del Molise), Diritto e letteratura in Europa: tu vuò fà l’americano?
Orlando ROSELLI (Università di Firenze) Vulnerabilità sociale, incertezza normativa e riqualificazione del giurista

Coffee Break
17.00 – 17.15


17.15 – 19.15
Presiede
Carla FARALLI, Presidente ISLL (Università di Bologna)

Otto PFERSMANN (Università “La Sorbonne” Parigi) La distinzione fondamentale del Law and Literature: Finzione giuridica, diritto fittizio, finzione explicativaKatia FIORENZA (Università del Sannio) Il giurista linguista nel labirinto redazionale degli atti legislativi UE: un modello educativoOreste CALLIANO (Università di Torino) Musical education and legal educationAndré KARAM TRINDADE (IHJ, Instituto de Hermenêutica Jurídica, Porto Alegre), Diritto, schiavitù e letteratura
Antonella ARGENIO (Seconda Università di Napoli) Uguaglianza nella differenza: le donne e il giuridico


ORE 19.30
ASSEMBLEA DEI SOCI “SOCIETÀ DI DIRITTO E LETTERATURA”
ORE 21.00 – CENA SOCIALE

1° Giugno 2012
ore 9.00 – 11.00

Presiede
Felice CASUCCI, Direttivo ISLL (Università del Sannio)

José CALVO GONZÁLEZ (Università di Málaga) Diritto e Letteratura, ad usum scholaris juventutis. (Con racconto implicito)Vittorio CAPUZZA (Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”) L'arte per il diritto e l'arte del diritto: letteratura e metodologia
Tito MARCI (Università La Sapienza, Roma) Ordine giuridico e organizzazione prospettica dello spazio visivo. Procedure dell’arte e processo di razionalizzazione del diritto
Henriete KARAM (Univesidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) Come il diritto può leggere la letteratura
Aglaia MCCLINTOCK (Università del Sannio) The Good Wife
Coffee Break
11.00 – 11.15

ore 11.15 – 13.15

Presiede
M. Paola MITTICA, Coordinatrice ISLL (Università di Urbino)

COMUNICAZIONI
Lucilla CONTE (Università degli Studi di Ferrara) Famiglia e matrimonio dentro la “narrazione” costituzionaleFlora DI DONATO (Unipegaso, Université de Neuchâtel) e Francesca SCAMARDELLA (Università di Napoli, Federico II), La ricerca della verità tra diritto e cultura. Note a margine di casi giudiziariAldacy RACHID COUTINHO (Universidade Federal do Paraná) Multiculturalità e diritti umaniCarmine DI DONATO (Università del Sannio) Libertà ed emancipazione nel modello giusletterarioMarcello GISONDI (Università di Napoli, Federico II), Ma gli androidi leggono Kant?Roberta LINCIANO (Università del Salento) La ricerca del significato: una prospettiva interdisciplinareMatteo DE LONGIS (Vicedirettore della Rivista “Diritti umani in Italia”) War on Terror or War on Words? Un’analisi giuridico/linguistica delle definizioni di terrorismo
Flavia MARISI (Università di Milano), Identità nazionale e identità europea. Un confronto tra la giurisprudenza della Corte Costituzionale tedesca e la musicaGiuseppe MASTROMINICO (Università di Napoli, Federico II) Sanzione e sentimento: percorsi letterari della penalistica italiana del secondo '800Alexandre MORAIS DA ROSA (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina): Economic Humanities?
Maria Teresa ROVITTO (Università di Napoli, Federico II), Lo spazio letterario della riflessione giuridica sull’altro
Maria Teresa SANZA, (Università degli Studi di Napoli) Il diritto nelle opere liriche. Gianni Schicchi di Giacomo Puccini. Armonia del sistema
Buffet
13.30

GIORGIO RESTA AND ENRICO MARIA POLIMANTI ON LAW AND MUSIC

Dear all,

on Thursday and Friday (as usual at 10:00 am, room 4), Prof. Giorgio Resta (University of Bari) and Enrico Maria Polimanti (professional pianist) will introduce us to the very special topic of Law and Music, with particular focus on the similarities between legal and musical interpretation.

This special event is open to all people interested, so please promote it!

Don't forget to come on Wednesday at 2:00 for our "repetition".

Suggested readings:
- J. Frank, Words and Music, in 47 "Columbia L. Rev.", 1259 (1947) .
- D. Manderson, Fission and Fusion: From Improvisation to Formalism in Law and Music, in "Critical Studies in Improvisation", 6.1. (2010). http://www.criticalimprov.com/article/viewArticle/1167/1726  


Enrico Maria Polimanti's CV:
Enrico Maria Polimanti was born in Rome in 1969. He studied at the Conservatorio di
Santa Cecilia and at the Royal College of Music in London, and has performed as soloist and
in chamber ensembles for many concert seasons and music festivals, playing a wide range
of traditional repertoire but also works by lesser-known composers such Lodovico Giustini
and Hyacinthe Jadin. He has played programmes dedicated entirely to Mozart, Haydn,
Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Debussy. Several composers have also written works
for him, one of whom is Francesco Giammusso, whose Piano Concerto he performed in Paris with the Orchestre Internationale de la Cité Universitaire.
Mr Polimanti’s recordings for the labels Tactus and Naxos gained recognition by the
critics in Italy and abroad (5 stars The Listerner and Musica) and his performances have been broadcast in Italy (Radio 3, V Canale della Filodiffusione, Radio Vaticana, RAI 3), France, Romania and Austria.
Engaged in the diffusion of musical culture, he regularly gives lectures and lecture- concerts in various schools, associations and universities both in Italy and abroad. Enrico Maria Polimanti has translated into Italian Charles Rosen’s Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s Chopin vu par ses élèves. His essay The Earth has many keys, which analyzes the works of five Italian contemporary composers based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson has been selected for the American Literay Scholarship (Duke University
Press).


Giorgio Resta's CV:
Giorgio Resta is Associate Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Bari, Italy (since 2002) and former Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, McGill University (2010-2011). He is the author of three books and several essays on personality rights, contracts, torts and intellectual property in comparative perspective. His first book “Autonomia privata e diritti della personalità” has been selected as one of the 10 best legal books of the year 2005 by the “Istituto Sturzo – Club dei giuristi”; the second, co-authored with Guido Alpa, is part of the prestigious Treatise of Italian Civil Law, directed by Rodolfo Sacco. His last book, in English, was published in 2009 with the title “Trial by Media as a Legal Problem: A Comparative Analysis”. He edited two books (the last one concerns the New intellectual property rights and the Numerus Clausus Principle) and the Italian translation of Hesselink’s “New European Legal Culture”; he also co-edited with Guido Alpa a casebook on Contracts Interpretation. In 2008 he served as a member of the scientific board of the Legislative Committee for the reform of third book of Italian Civil Code, appointed by the Italian Ministry of Justice; currently he serves as legal counsellor at the Ministry of Justice. He is member of the Italian Association of Comparative Law, the Italian Association of Law & Literature and co-director of the law series “Interferenze” (published by Editoriale Scientifica). He has been granted scholarships from the International Council for Canadian Studies, the Max-Planck-Institut für Internationales und Ausländisches Privatrecht (Hamburg, Germany), the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum (Munich, Germany), the European Commission and the Italian Research Council. He has been invited to lecture and deliver conferences in foreign Universities, such as the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), the Duke Law School (USA), the University of Bremen, and the University of Toronto. He studied, as a visiting scholar, in several Universities, such as the Yale Law School, the Duke Law School, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (Munich, Germany), and the University of Cologne. In 1995 he graduated with magna cum laude from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. In 1999 he received his PhD in Private Law from the University of Pisa. He is member of the Italian Bar. 

On Law and Archeology

Dear all,
I have a couple of questions to ask you. Try to answer using the knowledge you acquired during the course on Medieval and modern legal history.

1) During Prof. Gadeyne's lectures, we have seen that in the late antiquity we can observe a "privatisation" of public spaces in the city of Rome. This is a very typical phenomenon of the whole Middle Ages, with particular reference to late antiquity/early Middle Ages. I am thinking about the development of the so called "patrocinium" and of the "buccellari". Can you tell me what they were? You will certainly find the answer in Ennio Cortese's "Le grandi linee della storia giuridica medievale".

2) Spolia: In the Middle Ages (starting from late antiquity)  to renew meant to "reuse" the past. This is true not only for great monuments like the Arch of Constantine, but also for legislation. The idea that codes are to be written ex novo is a very modern one. Can you tell me what is the difference between "consolidations" and "codifications" according to Mario Viora? What was the Content of the Theodosian and Justinian Codes? Can you describe the phenomenon of the canon law falsifications of the 9th century? Which was at that time the role of "auctoritas"?

The Arch of Constantine can also be seen as a visual representation of the phenomenon of "vulgarisation" of the law in the eraly Middle Ages. You have seen that the engravings of the period of Constantine where not as refined as the others. The point wasn't that the artists weren't that good anymore, but that their audience  was different and they had to apply a new, simplified language. That is comparable with what happened in the framework of law.

As you can understand, late antiquity was a period of great changes and innovation, a period in which very different cultures, religions, languages came suddenly together: don't think that it meant only decadence! 

JAN GADEYNE ON LAW AND ARCHEOLOGY

Dear all,
prof. Jan Gadeyne (Arcadia University) will introduce us, today and tomorrow, to the world of Law and Archeology.
First lecture: Rome in the 5th century AD: Looking for a new urban identity
Second lecture: Use and reuse in late antiquity Rome: The Arch of Constantine and the Church of Santo Stefano Rotondo

Jan Gadeyne's CV:
Jan Gadeyne has a PhD in Archaeology and Ancient Art History and an M.A. in Classics from the Katholieke  Universiteit Leuven (Louvain, Belgium).  He also studied late antique art and archaeology at the Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster (Germany). He came to Rome in 1987 with a grant of the Italian government and studied early Christian Archaeology at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. Since 1988 he has been teaching for several American study abroad programs, including Temple University, Cornell University and Trinity College, and periodically lecturing for architecture programs, among them, University of Maryland, University of Miami, Pratt Institute and Yale University. His courses embrace Ancient Roman Art and Architecture, Urban History of Rome in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Late antique and early Byzantine Art and Architecture, Ancient History of Rome. Since 2005, he is co-director of the excavation of the Roman villa on the Piano della Civita in Artena (40 miles southeast of Rome). The title of his Ph.D. in Archaeology and Ancient Art History is “Function and dysfunction of the City: Rome in the 5^th century AD.” He has published papers on Roman lead seals and Early Christian apse mosaics, preliminary reports on the excavations of the Roman villa at Artena, and (forthcoming) an article on the urban history around the hospice of San Giuliano dei Fiamminghi, near Largo Argentina. He is currently working on the publication of his dissertation.

This week

Dear all,
as I have already told you, this week we will have 2 speakers: Prof. Jan Gadeyne (Arcadia University) will introduce us to the topic of Law and Archeology and Prof. Emanuele Conte, on Friday, will continue his class on Law and History. I will give you other information as soon as possible but remember that you should read the two articles that Prof. Conte suggested before his class.
See you soon

EMANUELE CONTE ON LAW AND HISTORY

Dear all,
tomorrow Prof. Conte will talk about the interactions between Law and History and thus, of the role of legal history. These are the suggested readings:

James Q. Whitman, "Bring back the Glory!", in "Rechtsgeschichte", 4 (2004), pp. 74-81.

Mathias Reimann, "Nineteenth German Legal Science", in "Boston College Law Review", 31.4 (1990), pp. 842-897, especially par. II and III.

MICHELE SPANO' ON LAW AND PHILOSOPHY

Dear all, next week we will start with two lectures on Law and Philosophy. Pay attention to the readings!

Lecture 1: Political Philosophy and Law: A Theoretical Introduction
In the first lecture I will try to sketch a broad theoretical framework on the relationships between (political) philosophy and law. Drawing on a scattered literature, I will propose to focus on legal procedures as a way to combine the most challenging theoretical description of power and political subjectivities with the sociological literature devoted to the so-called “judiciarization” of society. I will introduce some foucauldian concepts that make a different approach to law possible. I will consider law both as an ordering technique and as a transformative grammar and begin to introduce the foucauldian concepts of (neoliberal) governmentality and normative rationalities.

Lecture 2: Political Philosophy and Law: A Case
Drawing on the foucauldian concept of governmentality it is possible to set up an analysis of the great transformations undergone by the modern and western concept of representation. In a globalized world the politico-juridical vocabulary of modernity seems to be unusable to represent both emergent subjects and their claims. Class action taken as a juridical form is a powerful tool to rethink both the subjects and their claims beyond the horizon of modern politics. My aim is to show a way of politicizing legal procedures so that they can “produce” a subject capable to confront global challenges.

Suggested readings:
HUNT A. [2004], «Getting Marx and Foucault into Bed Together», in Journal of Law and Society, 31, 4, 2004, pp. 592-609.
KENNEDY D. [1995], «The Stakes of Law, or Hale and Foucault!», in Id., Sexy Dressing Etc: Essays on the Power and Politics of Cultural Identity, Harvard University Press, New Haven 1995, pp. 83-125.
LIANG L. [2005], «Porous Legalities and Avenues of Participation», in Sarai Reader 05, Sarai Media Lab, Delhi 2005, pp. 6-17.
MERRY S. E. [1995], «Resistance and the Cultural Power of the Law», in Law & Society Review, 29, 1, 1995, pp. 11-26.
WALBY K. [2007], «Contributions to a Post-Sovereigntist Understanding of Law: Foucault, Law as Governance, and Legal Pluralism», in Social & Legal Studies, 16, 4, 2007, pp. 551-571.

Michele Spanò's CV:
Michele Spanò (Rome, 1983) is Research Fellow at the Department of Law at the University of Turin. He is also Seminar Series Coordinator and co-convener with prof. Gunther Teubner of Foundations of Comparative Law at the International University College of Turin. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ and a Ph.D. in European Legal Cultures at the EHESS in Paris. He has been Agent Chercheur at the CENJ-Yan Thomas at the EHESS in Paris, Visiting Scholar at the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University in New York and Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for Historical Studies in Naples. He is member of the Editorial Board of ‘Politica & Società’ (il Mulino) and he writes for ‘il manifesto’ and ‘L’Indice dei libri del mese’. His research interests include the philosophy of Michel Foucault, governmentality, postcolonial studies and the relationship between legal actions and citizenship.

New competition: Find the good lawyer!

Dear all, this course is approaching the end and I have the impression that in the Law and Literature field the negative aspects of law a& lawyers seem to prevail. This can't be really said for the field of Law and Iconography and Law and Architecture. In the first one I think that we have both positive and negative interpretations of the law and of the lawyers while in architecture the image seems to be always positive. This is certainly linked to the fact that architecture, much more then the other "humanities", is conceived to represent power and its ideal representation of justice. Does this mean that the more the artist is free, the more the image of justice seems to be a negative one? I would like to ask you to post examples of good jurists (lawyers or judges or professors of law) in literature, cinema and iconography all over the world. I will start with the easiest example: Lawyer Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (which was also made into a very successful American movie). Someone of you could maybe try to describe the character? Both the novel and the movie are really nice.

6 Law and Literature: Pinocchio by Collodi

1) The group presented many different interpretations of "Pinocchio": religious, philosophical, psychoanalytic: do you think this is the real advantage of a literary work? Do you think that also a legal text can be understood under different points of view? 2) As we have already seen analysing Charles Dickens and his work, also in "Pinocchio" education appears as a fundamental issue during the age of the triumph of capitalism and national law states. Do you think that education is still a crucial issue in today's political and economical reality?

5 Law and Literature: Measure for Measure by Shakespeare

Dear all, these are the questions, which prof. Conte asked me to post after your presentations today: In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure there is a sharp distinction between strict application of law in court and a merciful exercise of authority. It is a very old opposition, since ancient Greek literature and Christian tradition. Do you think that such ancient exemples are still actual, in the perspective of Law and Literature? Or perhaps should a lawyer choose more recent literary works in order to understand the relationship between law and mercy in the today's culture? More in general: literary, iconographic, architectural witnesses of the perception of law by artists (and society) are useful to today's lawyers even if they are far back in time?

Pictures of the Supreme Court

Dear all, these are some of the pictures taken today at the Supreme Court. I am very glad that most of you were there and I'm sure that we all learned something new. They are not in the right order but I think that you will recognize everything: the Aula Magna and the beautiful frescos (Justinian and the 2 Lady justice in particular), the Cortile d'onore, the Library, the statues of important jurists(I added the one of Cardinal De Luca). I also noticed that in one of the "tondi" we can find one of the most famous canon lawyers of all times: Gratianus. And of course the Monument to Cavour in the recently restored square. Thank you very much to Dr. Susanna Ranucci for being our competent guide.

IMPORTANT: VISIT TO THE COURT OF CASSATION AT 11:00

Dear all, I have just received the authorization for the visit to the Court of Cassation on the 26th of April and it will start at 11:00. The meeting will be therefore in Piazza dei Tribunali (Lungotevere) at the entrance of the Court at 10:45. See you there

4 Law and architecture in totalitarianism: Focus on Italy, China and Germany

Can you think of other examples of law courts or buildings related to law in a totalitarian political context? Try to insert links to relevant images

3 Law and Achitecture from England to Rome

In the comparison between England and Italy, do you think that architecture can teach us something about the different legal systems? And about the education of lawyers?

2 Charles Dickens between legal and social issues

Dickens concerned a lot for the legal system shaping economy and society but he was also very much interested in education. Do you think there is a connection between the two issues?

Questions: 1 Law and Architecture: A Comparison

Dear all,
first of all, I would like to congratulate the groups that yesterday presented their researches: I know that there wasn't much time but you did a good job indeed. Prof. Conte asked me to post a question for all of the 3 topics proposed yesterday, in order to give you the opportunity to comment on the blog. I will start here with the first one.

In the comparison proposed by your collegues, 3 architectural styles emerged as particularly influencial in the framework of the courts of justice buildings: neo-classical, neo-gothic and modern.
Which concept do you associate to each of these styles?

Human Rights at Roma3

Dear all,
on Monday April 23rd at 5:30 pm in the Sala del Consiglio of the Law Faculty (Via Ostiense 161, 1st floor), Prof. Roland Adjovi will give a lecture on "Universality of Human Rights: A view from Africa". The lecture is open to all people interested!

Roland Adjovi is an international lawyer from Benin with extensive experience in the international criminal tribunals. He served as legal officer and thereafter Senior legal officer for 6 years, assisting the judges to manage pretrial matters, procedure, judgement drafting and the referral cases. He also wooed at the international criminal court. He currently couples a legal practice with his teaching: he is the lead counsel representing Rev Mtikila before the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

26th April 2012: Visit to the Court of Cassation (confirmation)

Dear all,
as you know, on the 26th of April we are going to visit the Court of Cassation. I need a list of all the people interested to come. I will write below the names of the students that have already confirmed. If you want to add your name, write a comment as soon as possible. By the way, you can also bring a friend but I need the names (do not exagerate).
The appointment will be in front of the Court of Cassation in Piazza Cavour at 9:45.

This is the provisional list:
1. Bussoletti Ludovica
2. Cencelli Chiara
3. Cordeschi Ilaria
4. Droege Rudolf
5. Fanelli Lorenzo
6. Ferrauti Chiara
7. Forzano Elena
8. Frattini Carlotta
9. Gaudino Benedetto Loris
10. Kisielewska Sophia
11. Koch Kai
12.
13. Maciariello Lorenzo
14. Masini Lavinia
15. Micarelli Serena
16. Mieli Andrea David
17. Mieli Micol
18. Norzi Carlo Alberto
19. Passeri Leoni Luca
20. Pedata Martina
21. Pizzari Lucia
22. Scioli Alessandro
23. Sebastiani Martina
24. Segreto Chiara
25. Stefanini Beatrice
26. Veroheven Clement
27. Woeste Carolin
28. D'Alpa Grazia
29. Cesario Elena
30. Musto Costanza
31. Tartaglione Maria Ludovica
32. Saponara Marianna

(+ me :-))

MIDTERM EXAM: INFORMATION & OBSERVATIONS

Dear all,
this post is just to sum up what we have already said during our classes. I'll try to give all possible information again. Some of you asked me if I want from you also a paper or a bibliography: let's say that this is up to you. You will be evaluated only on the basis of the presentation. Nevertheless, there are several things you could add:
1) A handout, to give to all of us during your presentation (a list of readings, an outline, etc.). Only in this case it will be considered as part of a presentation. Just think of how professors usually present their lectures.
2) A bibliography or even a paper (like an article) will be preserved and taken into account during your oral exam at the very end of the course. That means that it won't be part of the evaluation of the midterm.

This is the schedule of the Midterm exam (the titles are provisional):

Wed. 18th April 2012:
1) Law and architecture: A comparison (Matthias Andres, Ludovica Bussoletti, Chiara Cencelli, Elena Cesario, Ilaria Cordeschi)
2) Law and literature: Dickens (Grazia D'Alpa, Rudolf Droege, Lorenzo Fanelli, Chiara Ferrauti, Elena Forzano)

Thur. 19th April: NO CLASS

Fri. 20th April:
3) Law and architecture & totalitarianism (Yang Qingya, Florian Markus Rheinbay, Alessandro Scioli, Micol Mieli)
4) Law and literature: Dickens (Martina Sebastiani, Beatrice Stefanini, Andrea David Milei, Vitiello Vania, Carolin Woeste)

Wed. 25th April: NO CLASS (Festa della liberazione)

Thur. 26th April: Visit to the Court of Cassation

Fri. 27th April:
5) Law and architecture in England (Carlotta Frattini, Benedetto Loris Gaudino, Edoardo Gianni, Sophia Kisielewska, Kai Koch)
6) Law and literature: "Measure for measure" (Pietro La Rosa, Lucio Maria Lanzetti, Lorenzo Maciariello, Lavinia Masini, Serena Micarelli)
7) Law and literature: "Pinocchio" (Carlo Alberto Norzi, Luca Passeri Leoni, Martina Pedata, Lucia Pizzari, Clement Veroheven)

You will have 30 minutes time for each presentation.

GARY WATT ON LAW AND ICONOGRAPHY/LITERATURE

Dear all,
next week we will have 3 very intence lectures on law and iconography and law and literature. You can find below a very detailed outline of the lectures. As you will see, prof. Watt asks you to prepare before his classes reading texts, choosing pictures, thinking about metaphors. I am sure you will enjoy this week a lot!

Seminar One:
Wednesday 11th April 2012

“Foundations: architectural 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 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 Nicomachean Ethics, Book V chapter 10


Seminar Two
Thursday 12th April 2012
“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 is based around 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:
• 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 13th April 2012
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. I 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.

EASTER BREAK

Dear all,
the Easter break will last from the 5th to the 9th April. That means that we will have one class on the 4th and then we will start again on the 11th with prof. Gary Watt!

STEFANIA GIALDRONI ON LAW AND ARCHITECTURE

Dear all,
next week we are going to have only one class before the Easter break (on Wednesday, April 4th) on the meaning and function of the Italian Court of Cassation's building, better known to the people of Rome as "il Palazzaccio".

Temple of Justice or "Palazzaccio"? Giuseppe Zanardelli's Idea of Justice in Unified Italy

Reading:
Terry Rossi Kirk, The Politicization of the Landscape of Roma Capitale and the Symbolic Role of the Palazzo di Giustizia, in "Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée", 109.1 (2006), pp. 89-114.

ANTHONY MUSSON ON LEGAL ICONOGRAPHY

Dear all,
here you can find all information about the next classes on legal icongraphy. Prof. Musson, a legal historian from Exeter University, is an expert of the field and will explain us the importance and the power of immages in the legal world.


Abstract of the 3 lectures

1. Legal Iconography: aims and sources
This lecture will consider what legal iconography is and why it is relevant to an understanding of law. It will also examine through illustrations (taken mainly from the medieval period) the different types of sources for studying images of law and justice.

2. Legal Iconography: justice in action
This lecture will explore the portrayal of particular judicial themes through visual images and their historical interpretation. It will concentrate on images of legal authority, justice and punishment and demonstrate the power of image to convey concepts of law and experiences of the legal system.

3. Legal Iconography: possibilities and limitations
This lecture will reveal the benefits of using visual sources for an understanding of the historical practice of law and the workings of the judicial system. It will also highlight some of the drawbacks of reliance on a creative artistic medium.

Readings
- A. Musson, Ruling "virtually"? Royal Images in Medieval English Law Books, in Melville C.,Mitchell L. (eds), Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies on Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, Brill, 2012.

- A. Musson, Visual Sources: Mirror of Justice or 'Through a Glass Darkly', in Musson A.,Stebbings C. (eds), Making Legal History: Approaches and Methods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.


Anthony Musson's CV
Professor Anthony Musson is Professor of Legal History in the School of Law at the University of Exeter and Director of the Bracton Centre for Legal History Research. He was a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London (2003-6) and is a Barrister of the Middle Temple. He researches in the field of medieval criminal justice and legal culture and has published extensively in these fields including (with W. M. Ormrod) The Evolution of English Justice (Palgrave McMillan, 1999), Medieval Law in Context (Manchester University Press, 2001) and (with E. Powell) Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester University Press, 2009). Recent funded projects have enabled him to pursue research into legal iconography (British Academy, 2002-5, 2007) and the private lives of medieval and early Tudor lawyers (UK Economic and Social Research Council, 2007-9). Making Legal History (edited by Anthony Musson and Chantal Stebbings), the first volume to explore approaches and methodologies in legal history was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2012.

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm

http://www.kb.nl/manuscripts/

STEFANIA GIALDRONI ON LAW AND SHAKESPEARE

Dear all,
tomorrow and the day after tomorrow we are going finally to focus on one of the cornerstones of the Law & Literature studies: Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice". Our approach will be a Law IN Literature one, with particular reference to the limits of the liberty of contract and the relationship between law and equity. Tomorrow we will mainly read the text together (after having organized the Midterm exam) and on Friday we will deepen the above mentioned topics. If you can, just have a look at the plot in order to better understand the play. For Friday, I expect you to read Kornstein's article.

Readings:
- The Merchant of Venice, Act IV
http://www.william-shakespeare.info/script-text-merchant-of-venice.htm
D.J. Kornstein, Fie Upon your Law!, in “Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature”, 5.1 (1993): A Symposium Issue on “The Merchant of Venice”, pp. 35-56


Stefania Gialdroni's CV:
Stefania Gialdroni holds a PhD in legal history both from the University of Milano-Bicocca and the EHESS in Paris. She took part to the “European Doctorate in history, sociology, anthropology and philosophy of legal cultures in Europe” from 2009 to 2011. After one year spent at the London School of Economics, she spent the second and third year of the European Doctorate at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She received several scholarships from the Max-Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt am Main, where she attended the International Max-Planck Research School for Comparative Legal History. She has been organizing the Law & the Humanities course at the Roma3 Univerity under the direction of prof. Emanuele Conte since 2008. In 2003 she graduated from the University of Rome Tre, Law Faculty.
In 2011 she published the book: "East India Company. Una storia giuridica (1600-1708), Bologna: Il Mulino.

Cesare deve morire!

Dear all,
this post is just to suggest you a movie which is now in cinemas: "Cesare deve morire" (great title) directed by the brothers Taviani. There is a lot inside which can interest us: Law and Literature (Shakepseare's Julius Cesar), Law and Cinema, Prison and Dignity.... I warmly reccomend to watch it!

JUSTIN STEINBERG: DANTE'S COMMEDIA AS A NUDUM PACTUM

Dear all,
the focus on Law and Literature will continue next week with the analysis of Dante's "Divina Commedia". Prof. Justin Steinberg (University of Chicago, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures) will give us the opportunity to look at this masterpiece from a new point of view. In order to fully enjoy the lecture you should read BEFORE the class on March 21st the following parts of the INFERNO. You have to study entirely only the "canto" 21.

To sum up:
INFERNO:
16 (124-136)
21
22 (1-30)
The title of the lecture is:
Dante's Commedia as a nudum pactum: Contract law and the crisis of literary genre

BRING LIPSIUS' TEXT !

Dear all, tomorrow you must bring Lipsius' text in order to understand the lecture . Don't forget it!

Just a tip

Dear all,

in a book written by prof. Marco Ruotolo (Dignità e carcere, Napoli, 2011), I've found a little quotation that let me think about what we have said about the "Law as empathy" strand, even if it refers especially to cinema, and I would like to share it with you:

Il cinema "favorendo il pieno uso della nostra soggettività mediante la proiezione e l'identificazione, fa sì che simpatizziamo e comprendiamo coloro che ci sarebbero estranei o antipatici nella vita di tutti i giorni. Chi ha ripugnanza per il vagabondo incontrato per strada, al cinema simpatizza di tutto cuore con il vagabondo Charlot. Mentre nella vita quotidiana siamo quasi indifferenti alle miserie fisiche e morali, nel leggere un romanzo o nel vedere un film proviamo compassione o commierazione" (da: E. Morin, I sette saperi necessari all'educazione del futuro, Milano, 1999 (2001), 106).

WIM DECOCK: LAW AND LIERATURE IN THE REINASSANCE

This seminary invites students to investigate the origins of ‘Law & Humanities’ in Renaissance humanism. This variegated movement started among professional jurists on the Italian peninsular who were fascinated by the culture of Antiquity, the beauty of the pristine language of the Romans, and the classical ideal of the virtuous and learned citizen. Soon, jurists across Europe would try to imitate this inspiring model of the uomo universale, thereby laying the foundations of legal history, law and literature, and the study of the larger political and sociological context in which the law operates.

1. BACK TO THE ORIGINS OF LAW AND THE HUMANITIES
The first lesson will give students an overview of some important characteristics of legal humanism, starting with renowned humanists like Petrarca and gradually moving towards the reception of Italian humanism in France with jurists like Budé. These humanist lawyers’ passion for literature and history will be highlighted, as well as their ambiguous relationship with traditional legal education.

- P. Stein, Legal Humanism and Legal Science, in "Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis", 54 (1986), p. 297-306

2. LOVE AND CONTRACTS IN LEGAL HUMANISM
In the second lesson students will have the chance to read love poetry by the Italian humanist Giovanni G. Pontano and fragments of a novel on Cupid the Jurist by Étienne Forcadel, a law professor from Toulouse. In both instances, it will be shown how the humanist jurists mixed their passion for classical literature with their knowledge of Roman and canon law.

- G. G. Pontano (1429-1503), Eridanus 1.9
- E. Forcadel (1519-1578), Cupido Jurisperitus, cap. 2-3
- W. Decock, Law on Love's Stage: Étienne Forcadel's (c.1519-1578) Cupido Jurisperitus, in Draganova V., Kroll S., Landerer H., Meyer U. (Eds.), Inszenierung des Rechts / Law on Stage, München, Martin Meidenbauer, 2011, p. 17-36

3. LYING AND POLITICS IN LEGAL HUMANISMThe third lesson will concentrate on the humanists’ concern with politics and reason of state (raggione di stato). Through the reading of fragments taken from the book On Politics written by Justus Lipsius we will see how the humanists tried to come to terms with the political views that had been developed by Machiavelli. We will address such questions as whether lying and deceit are allowed in politics.

- J. Lipsius, Politica. Six books of politics or political instruction. Edited with translation and introduction by Jan Waszink, Assen 2004, p. 84-104 and p. 507-533 (odd pages)

WIM DECOCK'S CVWim Decock (°1983) graduated as a classicist at the Catholic University of Leuven (MA summa cum laude, 2005). He went on to participate in an interdisciplinary research project on European Legal Cultures, financed by the European Commission (6th Framework Program).
As a Marie Curie Early Stage Training Fellow he worked at the Max Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt am Main (2006-2007), the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in Florence (2007-2008), and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (2008-2009) in Paris. He was also granted a scholarship at the Academia Belgica in Rome (2007). During the spring term 2011 he was accepted as a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School, for which he was granted a travel grant from the FWO.
He is currently a fellow of the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO). On 8 December 2011 he received his PhD in Law from the University of Leuven and the degree of 'Dottore di ricerca in diritto europeo su base storico-comparatistica' from the Università degli Studi Roma Tre. In his dissertation, Wim investigated the historical foundations of modern contract law ('Theologians and Contract Law, The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune, ca. 1500-1650).