Suchergebnisse

In order to understand these distinct narratives of legal origin through the tools of narratology, we will proceed in several steps. First, we will define more precisely the set of social contract theories that we consider. We will discuss our decision to narrow the focus down to two social contract theorists in particular, one contemporary and one classical, John Rawls and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. These two theorists seem worlds apart in many respects—yet the tools of narratology will enable us to see their shared enterprise. Second, the tools of narratology will help us to identify and discuss the component parts that define social contract narratives, namely, the creation of an original space and situation, the description of the act of contracting, and the way in which endings are used to frame and position all of the moving pieces into one linear and evolutionary storyline. We will then examine why narratology yields an interesting and fruitful analysis of these narratives. In concluding, we will link this endeavour to future ones, in which we intend to use the tools of 'law and literature' to make sense of the narratives, in theory and in practice, that give rise to and sustain legal and political order.

Abstract
This article explores the Concorde crash of 25 July 2000, seeking to show how law and regulation do crucial ontological work in the maintenance of commercial flight, and likely other aspects of modern techno-social arrangements. I argue that law and regulation cannot be seen as an exteriority, constraining and shaping the production of technology, but should be viewed as a component in the production of a physico-legal reality that a machine embodies. The Concorde disaster, by this logic, happened when that reality proved to be inadequate. It sparked a physical redesign of the aircraft, but also an intertwined effort to repair it normatively. Commercial flight is thus a total phenomenon comprising physical and social laws. This, I suggest, is the ontological significance of law and regulation in the production and maintenance of airliners.

For over 2000 years, laws have allowed husbands to beat their wives. Until the last century, American law conformed to this tradition. This article traces the roots of American law to English and Roman law, the latter giving husbands life‐and‐death authority over wives. In the nineteenth century American state courts permitted husbands to beat their wives for misconduct. Pioneering women in the temperance, abolitionist, and women's rights movements first attacked the common law ofwife‐beating and restrictive divorce policies. By the 1870s, wife‐beating became outlawed. Earlier in the nineteenth century, legislatures had expanded the grounds for divorce, opening an avenue of escape for physically abused wives. But the law still gives limited protection to assaulted spouses, who are more often wives than husbands.