Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasures
Author: Laura E. Little
Publisher:
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2019
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0190625767

In Guilty Pleasures, legal scholar Laura Little provides a multi-faceted account of American law and humor, looking at constraints on humor (and humor's effect on law), humor about law, and humor in law.

The Law and Comedy

The Law and Comedy
Author: Giuseppe Rossi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2023-10-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111286770

Despite their inherent seriousness, the law and those who practice it, be it lawyers, judges, politicians, or bureaucrats, are amongst the most popular objects of comedy and humour. Sometimes even the mention of the law, or the mere use of legal vocabulary, can trigger laughter. This is deeply counterintuitive, but true across cultures and historical eras: while the law is there to prevent and remedy injustice, it often ends up becoming the butt of comedy. But laughter and comedy, too, are also infused with seriousness: as universal social phenomena, they are extremely complex objects of study. This book maps out the many intersections of the law and laughter, from classical Greece to the present day. Taking on well-known classical and modern works of literature and visual culture, from Aristophanes to Laurel and Hardy and from Nietzsche to Totò and Fernandel, laughter and comedy bring law back to the complexity of human soul and the unpredictability of life.

Dante & the Limits of the Law

Dante & the Limits of the Law
Author: Justin Steinberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2013-12-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 022607112X

In Dante and the Limits of the Law, Justin Steinberg offers the first comprehensive study of the legal structure essential to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Steinberg reveals how Dante imagines an afterlife dominated by sophisticated laws, hierarchical jurisdictions, and rationalized punishments and rewards. He makes the compelling case that Dante deliberately exploits this highly structured legal system to explore the phenomenon of exceptions to it, crucially introducing Dante to current debates about literature’s relation to law, exceptionality, and sovereignty. Examining how Dante probes the limits of the law in this juridical otherworld, Steinberg argues that exceptions were vital to the medieval legal order and that Dante’s otherworld represents an ideal “system of exception.” In the real world, Dante saw this system as increasingly threatened by the dual crises of church and empire: the abuses and overreaching of the popes and the absence of an effective Holy Roman Emperor. Steinberg shows that Dante’s imagination of the afterlife seeks to address this gap between the universal validity of Roman law and the lack of a sovereign power to enforce it. Exploring the institutional role of disgrace, the entwined phenomena of judicial discretion and artistic freedom, medieval ideas about privilege and immunity, and the place of judgment in the poem, this cogently argued book brings to life Dante’s sense of justice.

Law and Disorder: Absurdly Funny Moments from the Courts

Law and Disorder: Absurdly Funny Moments from the Courts
Author: Charles M. Sevilla
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2014-08-04
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0393349543

More hilarious, unbelievable-but-true stories from our nation’s courts, from the author of Disorder in the Court and Disorderly Conduct. Charles M. Sevilla finds comic gems in court transcripts—and now brings readers a delightful, all-new collection. Starting with a chapter on the defendants (one of whom, when asked his marital status, replies after a long pause, "Adequate") and following with sections on lawyers, experts, witnesses, evidence, and even one called "Malaprops" (DA: The status of the boat has no relevance to this case at all. This is a total fishing expedition). Stories from Sevilla's previous books have become viral Internet sensations, priming readers for more legal disorder, such as: Clerk: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to given in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Witness: Yes, I swear. I’ll say anything but the truth, nothing but the truth.

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar
Author: Caty Borum Chattoo
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520299779

Comedy is a powerful contemporary source of influence and information. In the still-evolving digital era, the opportunity to consume and share comedy has never been as available. And yet, despite its vast cultural imprint, comedy is a little-understood vehicle for serious public engagement in urgent social justice issues – even though humor offers frames of hope and optimism that can encourage participation in social problems. Moreover, in the midst of a merger of entertainment and news in the contemporary information ecology, and a decline in perceptions of trust in government and traditional media institutions, comedy may be a unique force for change in pressing social justice challenges. Comedians who say something serious about the world while they make us laugh are capable of mobilizing the masses, focusing a critical lens on injustices, and injecting hope and optimism into seemingly hopeless problems. By combining communication and social justice frameworks with contemporary comedy examples, authors Caty Borum Chattoo and Lauren Feldman show us how comedy can help to serve as a vehicle of change. Through rich case studies, audience research, and interviews with comedians and social justice leaders and strategists, A Comedian and an Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice explains how comedy – both in the entertainment marketplace and as cultural strategy – can engage audiences with issues such as global poverty, climate change, immigration, and sexual assault, and how activists work with comedy to reach and empower publics in the networked, participatory digital media age.

The Law and Comedy

The Law and Comedy
Author: Giuseppe Rossi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2023-11-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111287769

Despite their inherent seriousness, the law and those who practice it, be it lawyers, judges, politicians, or bureaucrats, are amongst the most popular objects of comedy and humour. Sometimes even the mention of the law, or the mere use of legal vocabulary, can trigger laughter. This is deeply counterintuitive, but true across cultures and historical eras: while the law is there to prevent and remedy injustice, it often ends up becoming the butt of comedy. But laughter and comedy, too, are also infused with seriousness: as universal social phenomena, they are extremely complex objects of study. This book maps out the many intersections of the law and laughter, from classical Greece to the present day. Taking on well-known classical and modern works of literature and visual culture, from Aristophanes to Laurel and Hardy and from Nietzsche to Totò and Fernandel, laughter and comedy bring law back to the complexity of human soul and the unpredictability of life.

Legal Research and Writing

Legal Research and Writing
Author: Ted Tjaden
Publisher:
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2010
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781552211762

"Legal Research and Writing, Third Edition" seeks to explain the practical skills needed for print and online legal research and for legal writing. It provides a current and comprehensive look at the topic, consolidating information on legal research and writing into one handy, easy-to-use resource. The book is written for both seasoned practitioners, seeking to add the latest sources and techniques to their research arsenals, and for beginning law students who face a bewildering array of information. It includes chapters on legal research malpractice, the acquisition of research resources, and knowledge management. In addition, it covers searching the new platforms of the major proprietary online legal databases, the increasing digitization of legal materials, and the Web 2.0. "Legal Research and Writing" is the most up-to-date book of its kind available in Canada today.

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy
Author: Michael Fontaine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 913
Release: 2014-04
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0199743541

The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy marks the first comprehensive introduction to and reference work for the unified study of ancient comedy. From its birth in Greece to its end in Rome, from its Hellenistic to its Imperial receptions, no topic is neglected. The 41 essays offer cutting-edge guides through comedy's immense terrain.

The New Yorker Book of Lawyer Cartoons

The New Yorker Book of Lawyer Cartoons
Author: The New Yorker
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 98
Release: 1993-11-30
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0679430687

Critically acclaimed cartoonists including Addams, Steig, Arno, Shanahan, and Leo Cullum take pot shots at the legal profession in a collection of eighty-five cartoons from the pages of The New Yorker.

The Collected Stories of Rumpole

The Collected Stories of Rumpole
Author: John Mortimer
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 752
Release: 2013-04-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0141198826

Horace Rumpole - witty, eloquent, dishevelled and cynical - is one of fiction's best-loved barristers-at-law. In these twenty classic tales, Rumpole battles through the Old Bailey, whether defending various members of an incompetent South London crime family, taking on haute-cuisine chefs and showfolk or mocking the pomposity of his own profession, all the while being held in check by his wife, Hilda: the wonderful, fearsome She Who Must Be Obeyed. These collected stories, in Penguin Modern Classics for the first time, are a definitive introduction to one of the wisest and wittiest characters in British comic writing and a reminder of what justice should really be about. With a new introduction by Sam Leith, former literary editor of the Daily Telegraph and contributor to the Evening Standard, Guardian and Spectator.