Sep

14

More on Literary Characters and Copyright Law

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | September 14, 2009 | 1 Comment

This blog has seen an extended discussion on the topic of literary characters and copyright law.  It began with my post here, discussing the ongoing court case brought by J.D. Salinger over the unauthorized use of his Holden Caulfield character from The Catcher in the Rye, (Salinger v. Colting) and using a comparison to the [...]

Sep

7

Law School and the Hero’s Journey

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | September 7, 2009 | 1 Comment

Most law school professors are conflicted about their own experiences as law students.  We remember law school as an exceedingly unpleasant place, filled with crushing amounts of work and a hostile professoriate.  It is not surprising that law school is often depicted as a de-humanizing experience in the media, whether in books like Scott Turow’s One L [...]

Aug

27

I Am the Author

Posted by: Richard M. Esenberg | August 27, 2009 | 8 Comments

Your faithful blog committee moderates posts and comments on  a rotating basis.  I was  ”on call” on Tuesday evening and, returning home in despair after a night at Miller Park,  inadvertently published posts by Professors Greipp and Papke under my own name. The mistake was fixed in the morning.
But I found the latter error intriguing. [...]

Aug

25

What Is an Author?

Posted by: David R. Papke | August 25, 2009 | 4 Comments

I greatly enjoyed last week’s exchange among colleagues Bruce Boyden, Ed Fallone, and Gordon Hylton regarding literary sequels and the general purposes of copyright law. It is my impression that most blog posts do not purport to be “scholarly,” but the posts by Boyden, Fallone, and Hylton had the length and depth necessary for that [...]

Aug

16

Caufield Meets Quixote

Posted by: Edward A. Fallone | August 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Last Thursday, a brief was filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of Salinger v. Colting.  This lawsuit, alleging breach of copyright, has received a great deal of attention because the plaintiff is the reclusive author J.D. Salinger.  He sued Swedish author Fredrik Colting in New York over [...]

Jun

26

Duality or Trinity, Scales or Circles: What Approach for Justice in a New Generation?

Posted by: Rachel Monaco-Wilcox | June 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

This week, I want to try to tie together some aspects of three experiences I recently had, and tell why I believe they reflect something about the evolving nature of justice at this point in human history.
A. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Jr.: A first generation poet; a second generation jurist. I was rooting around [...]

Apr

4

April Is the Cruelest Month

Posted by: David R. Papke | April 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Spring is rumored to be in the air, but in the legal academy and in general it isn’t always the happiest and most optimistic of times.  T. S. Eliot offered the following lines in the The Waste Land:
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring [...]

Jan

16

“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity.”

Posted by: David R. Papke | January 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment

 
Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd” has firmly secured its place in the law and literature canon, but a different law-related work by Melville is my favorite.  Over the last twenty-five years or so I have almost annually read “Bartleby the Scrivener – A Story of Wall Street” (1853), being moved by it more each time.
The [...]

Jan

13

Interesting Legal Writing: The Legal Fiction of Lowell B. Komie, and Poems by Lawyers

Posted by: Jessica E. Slavin | January 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Like some of the other bloggers, I am interpreting this month’s question a little loosely. I don’t have a favorite law novel or film. Instead, I am going to recommend a book of law-related short stories, The Legal Fiction of Lowell B. Komie, and then talk a little about poetry by lawyers.