The field of law and popular culture concentrates on the interface between two subjects of enormous importance in contemporary society. On the one hand, law affects everyone's life, and courts resolve many important social, political, and economic issues. On the other hand, most people consume large amounts of popular culture in the form of film, television, novels, comic books, theater, music, and other mass media. Indeed, most people learn much of what they know (or think they know) about law and lawyers from works of popular culture. Numerous scholars now work in the area of law and popular culture, and courses and seminars on the subject are taught in undergraduate and graduate programs around the world.
On June 6 and 7, 2013, the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University will convene a two-day international conference on research and teaching in the field of law and popular culture. Papers on any aspect of the relationship between law and popular culture are welcome. Amongst the questions to be addressed are the following: In what ways do popular representations of law mediate conceptions of justice either locally or across cultures? What are the methodologies for teaching law and popular culture in undergraduate and graduate programs? How does popular culture represent lawyers in various practice settings? What can we learn from studying popular representations of justice in systems that are not our own?
Materials and presentations will be in English. The conveners of the conference are Kathryn Brown, Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg University (k.j.brown@tilburguniversity.edu), Michael Asimow, Stanford Law School (asimow@law.stanford.edu), and David Papke, Marquette University Law School (david.papke@marquette.edu).
We invite you to submit an abstract of a 20 minute paper that you would like to deliver at the conference. Abstracts should be limited to 200 words and should be accompanied by a brief biographical statement. Abstracts should be sent to Michael Asimow by email not later than December 1, 2012. Notifications regarding acceptance of papers will be sent by February 1, 2013.
We will attempt to locate a venue for publication of selected papers presented at the conference.