Suchergebnisse

Melinda Hunt's ongoing Hart Island Project, which commemorates individuals who are interred in the state-owned graveyard on New York's Hart Island because they were unknown or unclaimed or were too impoverished to be buried elsewhere, is interpreted as a cinematic & photographic text that unveils the conflict between the law & aesthetics regarding deceased individuals. An overview of the history of Hart Island is presented, revealing how local culture & law have attempted to render the bodies interred in the island's graveyard invisible, which is deemed a contrast with other cultures' public acknowledgment of dead bodies. It is argued that Hunt's work provides an aesthetic documentation of the deceased & forces the materialization of the dead bodies on the public despite legal mechanisms that keep them imperceptible. Even though Hunt's work forces the public to recognize these "others," it is stressed that the Hart Island Project also represents the narratives of another set of "others," namely, the prisoners who bury the dead at Hart Island. The study's implications for integrating aesthetics within existing legal understandings of the dead body are also pondered. 15 Figures, 25 References. J. W. Parker

"Commentators have shown how a 'culture of security' ushered in after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 has involved exceptional legal measures and increased recourse to secrecy on the basis of protecting public safety and safeguarding national security. In this context, scholars have largely been preoccupied with the ways that increased security impinges upon civil liberties. While secrecy is justified on public interest grounds, there remains a tension between the need for secrecy and calls for openness, transparency and disclosure. In law, secrecy has implications for the separation of powers, due process, and the rule of law, raising fundamental concerns about open justice, procedural fairness and human rights. Beyond the counterterrorism and legal context, scholarly interest in secrecy has been concerned with the credibility of public and private institutions, as well as the legacies of secrecy across a range of institutional and cultural settings. By exploring the intersections between secrecy, law and society, this volume is a timely and critical intervention in secrecy debates traversing various fields of legal and social inquiry. It will be a useful resource for academic researchers, university teachers and students, as well as law practitioners and policymakers interested in the legal and socio-legal dimensions of secrecy"--