Thesis (LLM) --University of Pretoria, 2009. / No abstract available. Includes bibliographical references .

Contemporary Western legal storytelling relies heavily on images and discourses in popular culture to secure meaning and give credibility to certain legal arguments. This thesis focuses on the legal stories told in the trial of a celebrity in Western society. As a system of meaning, the celebrity sign operates on the levels of signification and affect. The ambiguous semiotic power of the celebrity sign forces an examination by the legal audience regarding the "real" nature of the celebrity. Reality and truth are seen to emanate from this private self. Moreover, the affective power of the celebrity sign guarantees that, at times, emotion will dictate how much credibility will be given to particular celebrity legal stories and what stories will be considered plausible by a jury. In the trial of a celebrity "Other" — that is, one of the celebrated few who defies the white male norm -- celebrity legal storytelling looks towards issues of race, class, and gender, in addition to celebrity, in order to secure meaning and effect credibility. The aesthetic acceptance of the celebrity "Other," along with discourses of authenticity in Western society, work to shape what is considered credible and true in a courtroom. These factors place limits on the semiotic and affective power of the celebrity "Other" and, thus, on what celebrity legal stories will be accepted as truth in the courtroom. Looking specifically at the 1949 acquittal of jazz singer, Billie Holiday, and the 1994 acquittal/partial conviction of gangsta rapper, Tupac Shakur, this thesis will demonstrate the ways in which law, culture, race, gender, class, and the celebrity intersect in the Western mass media and how this intersection affects legal process and the trial tactics utilized in the trial of a celebrity "Other." / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

No description available.

This study examines two interconnected and as yet wholly neglected aspects of Max Weber's 'Sociology of Law,' namely, its substantive underpinnings and focal concern with the status of the judge. At the heart of the 'Sociology of Law' is a comparative analysis of the Continental and the English administrations of justice, which can best be understood when read against his substantive sociology and which requires an assiduous reading of the 'Sociology of Law.' Thus the first part of this examination elucidates Weber's overarching concern with the effects of bureaucratization on the development of personality. The second part provides a detailed explication of the 'Sociology of Law' which privileges his treatment of the Common Law and distinguishes the juristic and sociological strands of his analysis, re-examines his notion of formal and substantive rationality, pays close attention to his assessment of the Free Law Movement, and accords due place to his discussion of the anti-formalistic tendencies in modern law. Taken together, these expose the contradictions and assumptions which frame his tendentious analysis and bring to light the vital role he ascribes to the judge.

No description available.

This paper puts forth a radical behaviorist approach to legal theory according to which law is a set of behavioral contingencies which control the behavior of individuals according to politically defined goals. Based on the proposition that modern legal systems, because of their inherent contingency and chronic mutability, are irremediably instrumental to politically defined social goals, and on the radical behaviorist fundamental assumption that a science of human behavior is possible, the paper develops what can be called a radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory. According to this perspective, a social system is neither a collection of individuals nor of individual acts, but a class of interconnected behavioral patterns or cultural practices conditioned and maintained through the same generalized reinforcer, which, in the case of law, is the dichotomy between legal versus illegal. To construct this radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory, the paper relies on three major theoretical foundations. The first one is a criticism of Skinner’s concept of verbal behavior according to which instead of a special kind of behavior, it is defined as nothing but the human species-specific operant control of the vocal musculature by social reinforcement contingencies. The second one is to propose a more functional alternative to Skinner’s concept of human social behavior as that kind of operant behavior which is conditioned and maintained by other people’s behavior. The third one is a dialogue between radical behaviorism and Luhmann’s social systems theory, whose main purpose is to provide radical behaviorism with a more sophisticated description of modern society which, despite several differences, is also radically anti-individualistic and evolutionary. The final part of the paper is a detailed discussion of how law controls human behavior.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaves 355-359. / by Allen S. Lee. / Ph.D.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Trier, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-206) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed January 5, 2010). PDF text: vii, 162 p. : ill. ; 748 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3360090. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Around the world, scholars and politicians are engaged in a passionate debate concerning the universality of Human Rights. The problem of inequality between men and women concerning property rights is also part of this dispute. The transposition of human rights in another cultural context may create conflicts with new fundamental values. In a cultural context that differs from the western one, those rights don't always have their place or they may be reinterpreted accordingly with different cultural visions of what is a just society. / In order to get a better understanding of this problem, this research is proposing an analysis of the relation of Indian women with the courts regarding dowry death cases, especially in Maharashtra. The increasing number of those death cases are a contemporary manifestation of inequality. The apparition of this very Indian crime is linked with the augmentation of the frequency of the dowry practice despite the Dowry Prohibition Act (1961). Through the study of jurisprudence, ethnographies and some interviews conducted with Indian women living in Montreal, it is possible to identify factors influencing the relationship of women with respect to their rights and the Indian legal system. / The proposed study shows that case analysis, combined with other research techniques, is an essential tool for understanding the dynamics between laws and practices. All findings lead to the following conclusion: legal anthropology can bring light into the debate concerning the universality of Human rights.