Humanities Department Faculty Publications & Research

"Hear the Enemy, My Daughter"

Kenneth Schneyer — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:58:05 PDT

"Financial Strategies for Innovative Researchers"

Kenneth Schneyer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:54:43 PDT

Confinement

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:51:17 PDT

The Mannequin's Itch

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:51:15 PDT

Neural Net

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:51:14 PDT

Working Holiday

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:51:12 PDT

Serkers and Sleep

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 31 May 2012 05:36:26 PDT

Tunnel Vision: “Invisible” Highways and Boston’s “Big Dig” in the Age of Privatization

Michael R. Fein — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:54:55 PST

While most analyses of late-twentieth-century highway policy suggest a shift toward open system design, bottom-up federalism, and the devolution of transportation governance, the history of Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel project, informally known as the “Big Dig,” runs counter to this trend. Though the project emerged in the 1970s during a time of unprecedented citizen activism in transportation planning, ultimately the privatization of political power proved to be the Big Dig’s most important legacy for twenty-first-century urban highway projects.

The Age of Three Stars

Kenneth Schneyer — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:49:27 PST

"The Culture of Risk: Deconstructing Mutual Mistake"

Kenneth Schneyer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:42:22 PST

"Avoiding the Personal Pronoun: The Rhetoric of Display and Camouflage in the Law of Sexual Orientation"

Kenneth Schneyer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:38:05 PST

"Talking About Judges, Talking About Women: Constitutive Rhetoric in the Johnson Controls Case"

Kenneth Schneyer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:38:03 PST

No Place to Stand: The Incoherent Legal World of J. K. Rowling

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:49:55 PST

It is astonishing, when one thinks of it, that a series of children's books is so crammed with law. Not one of the seven Harry Potter novels fails to explore difficult issues law, interpretation and especially the relationship of the state to the individual. From practically the first page of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (SS) we ponder issues of child custody, fosterage and adoption;1 before Harry even gets to Hogwarts we have heard about crime and punishment,2 legal control over the use of magic,3 monetary policy,4 and Wizarding government.5 Before the series is complete we have witnessed five different judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings, three changes in government, and the enactment and repeal numerous statutes and regulations. Rowling could easily have written her spiritual, moralistic adventure series without these trappings. Why are they there?6 Further, when one examines the legal universe contemplated in these novels, one finds that the laws are radically inconsistent and incoherent, in many places rising to the level of caricature or absurd contradiction. One could ascribe these apparent "errors" to carelessness on the part of the author, as in the case of Rowling's errors in astronomy and chronology. But the incoherence and inconsistency in law is too systematic and flagrant for this; it bears the marks of having been considered carefully, in places with a sort of perverse glee.7 I suggest that this deliberate incoherence is a commentary on the reliability and value of rules and institutions generally and of political and legal institutions in particular. Rowling, I shall argue, uses the law as a backdrop against which to show the absolute dependence of the world on individual virtue and morality. Institutions, rules, procedures cannot help us; only the good, moral man or woman, exercising free, individual choice, can do that.

Review of A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:11:35 PST

Hooting: Public and Popular Discourse About Sex Discrimination

Kenneth Schneyer — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:33:48 PST

In recent years there have been a surprising number of legal attacks on the restaurant chain called Hooters. These attacks have all been based, one way or another, on a claim of sex discrimination in employment. Yet the attacks vary considerably: some are based on claims of sexual harassment, some on claims by private individuals that they have been discriminated against in hiring because they are male, still others on general claims that the chain is engaged in systemic sex discrimination. Many of these claims are concerned with the troubling boundaries of the bona fide occupational qualification, that uncomfortable defense to claims of overt discrimination. That a single business enterprise should be the target of so many different kinds of sex discrimination claims is curious.

No One's Safe

Kenneth Schneyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:33:29 PDT

Imagination's Curse

Kenneth Schneyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:33:27 PDT

Too Much Sense

Kenneth Schneyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:33:26 PDT

Before Playing

Kenneth Schneyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:33:24 PDT

Calibration

Kenneth Schneyer — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:33:22 PDT