Motivation and Humanity: A Conversation with Carrie La Seur
Carrie La Seur discusses her new novel, The Weight of an Infinite Sky, standing up for what you know is right, and the writers who inspire her.
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Posts Tagged: law
Sunday Rumpus Poetry: Six Erasure Poems by Alison Thumel
Give amnesty. / Which birthright / is perpetual / and whose is made? / One sentence / should be kept: / I had a body / to believe.
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The Rumpus Interview with Emily Raboteau
Emily Raboteau discusses her essay, “Know Your Rights!” from the collection, The Fire This Time, what she loves about motherhood, and why it’s time for White America to get uncomfortable.
...moreReading the Fine Print
Traditional publishers provide many services for authors, including fact-checking and obtaining permission for intellectual property. Self-publishing platforms don’t provide these services, and because of a recent court ruling, aren’t responsible for mistakes made by authors. The National Law Review looks at the landmark case, and how it removes liability for the publishing platforms: The ruling […]
...moreThe Non-Fiction Dilemma
Ever wonder how to write about other people without getting sued? Well, here are some answers. Another flavor of invasion of privacy is called false light. Suppose you post a photo of a criminal arrest. Jane Doe, a bystander, appears in the picture, a true fact. If the photo creates the impression that Jane was […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Morris Ratner
Trailblazing lawyer and professor Morris Ratner speaks to the Rumpus about the historic lawsuits against banks that profited from the Holocaust.
...moreTelling Digital Stories in the Classroom
A communications law professor offers this tale of integrating digital storytelling in the classroom: After all, we tell our students in courses focusing on skills that online tools are excellent opportunities to engage in some fantastic storytelling. Why not encourage students to use those tools to tell the stories of communication history, theory, sociology or, […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Frank H. Wu
Frank H. Wu, the Chancellor and Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law, talks about writing, race, assimilation, his hometown of Detroit, and the similarities between the Vincent Chin and Trayvon Martin cases.
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On Loitering
In Charles Moore’s iconic black-and-white photograph, Coretta looks on stoically, lips parted, hands clasped in front as her husband, Martin Luther King, has his right arm bent behind his back by a police officer in a tall hat.
...moreOn “Proper” English and Objective Legislation
It’s no secret that English is a constantly shifting, malleable, many-headed beast of a language, yet, much of the time, writers and speakers insist emphatically on obeying its many ostensibly rigid rules. At The New York Times, linguist John McWhorter writes about the myth of “proper” English: “We are taught that a proper language makes perfect […]
...moreChild Witnesses
“Today children of any age can be called to give evidence as their competence depends upon their understanding not their age.” But that has not always been the case; before the 17th century children younger than 14 were deemed unreliable witnesses. Then, along came witch hunts and one particular English witch trial in which a […]
...moreOn Law, Zines and Trans Politics
“. . .there has been widescale attacks on social movements over the last thirty or forty years in response to the very meaningful social movements in the sixties and seventies that had very transformative demands, that were seeking a redistribution of wealth and of life chances in really significant ways. “What’s emerged in their place […]
...moreThe Constitution in Pictures
Over at Cool Tools, Kevin Kelly has posted a review of a graphic adaptation of the US Constitution. Describing the document as “a robust self-correcting legal OS,” but admits that it can be hard to understand. But he recommends the primer very highly. Although it’s the comic book version, “rather than dumbing it down, it […]
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