David Papke
Biography
David Papke joined the Marquette University Law School faculty in 2002 after serving on the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis faculty for eighteen years. Professor Papke worked earlier as Dean of Yale University's Davenport College, and he has been a visiting professor at the University of Illinois and Indiana University-Bloomington. In 1986-87, he was a Fulbright professor at Tamkang University, Taipei, and he has lectured in Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, St. Kitts, Uganda, and Vietnam. Professor Papke teaches Property, Family Law, Jurisprudence, Legal History, and a range of courses and seminars in law and the humanities. He has a special scholarly interest in the role of law in American culture. He is the author or editor of Framing the Criminal: Crime, Cultural Work, and the Loss of Critical Perspective (1987), Narrative and the Legal Discourse: Storytelling and the Law (1991), Heretics in the Temple: Americans Who Reject the Nation's Legal Faith (1998), The Pullman Case: The Clash of Labor and Capital in Industrial America (1999), Law and Popular Culture: Text, Notes, and Questions (2007; 2nd Edition, 2012), and Law and Popular Culture: International Perspectives (2014). His most recent book is Containment and Condemnation: Law and the Oppression of the Urban Poor (2019).
Recent Lectures, Papers, and Presentations:
"CLS Lessons: The Pedagogy of Critical Legal Studies," Institute for Law Teaching and Learning Summer Conference, University of Arkansas - Little Rock Bowen School of Law; Little Rock, Arkansas; June, 2026.
"The Humanities Endangered - A Concern in Contemporary Legal Education," Law & the Humanities Section, AALS Annual Meeting; New Orleans, Louisiana; January, 2026.
"The American Rejection of the Right to Housing," 13th Annual Global Studies Conference; Athens, Greece; December, 2024.
"The Dehumanizing Effect of Age-Segregated Housing," Belmont University Law School Property Law Symposium; Nashville, Tennessee; September, 2022.
"Law and the Oppression of the Urban Poor," Michigan State University School of Human Resources and Labor Relations; East Lansing, Michigan; September, 2019.
"The Limits of Law: Neoliberalism and Health Law Reform," International Society for the Semiotics of Law; Coimbra, Portugal; May, 2019.
"Criminal Voices in American Popular Music," International Society for the Semiotics of Law; Orebro, Sweden; May, 2018.
"John Grisham's View of Legal Education," Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities; Washington, D.C; March, 2018.
"Addressing Health Inequities: Law and Social Justice for the American Urban Poor," International and Comparative Urban Law Conference, Hong Kong, June, 2016.
"The Communistic Inclinations of Sir Thoma More," Utopia 500 Lecture Series; McGeorge Law School; Sacramento, California; March, 2016.
"Postmodern Decline? The American Belief in the Rule of Law," 12th Annual Conference on Law and Legal Scholarship; Athens, Greece; July, 2015.
"Law in the Hollywood Cinema," the University of Wollongong; Wollongong, Australia; July, 2014.
"The Adoption of Asian Children by American Whites," Third Biennial Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, Monmouth University; West Long Branch, New Jersey; April, 2013.
"Evolutionary Functionalism: A Viable Approach to American Legal History?" Stawa University; Kampala, Uganda; August 2012.
"Transracial Adoption in the Contemporary United States," International Society of Family Law North American Conference; Nassau, The Bahamas; March, 2011.
"Contain, Condemn, and Criminalize: The Functions of Law and Legal Institutions for the Underclass," Loyola Law School -New Orleans; New Orleans, Louisiana; November, 2010.
"Muffled Message: Capital Punishment and Hollywood Films," Center for the Study of Film and History Annual Conference; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November, 2010.
"Profess, Apply, Pickle, and Trash: Four Legal Educators' Approaches to the Law," 70 ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL 65 (2025).
"The Jurisprudence of Transcendentalism," 60 IDAHO LAW REVIEW 185 (2024).
"Good Intentions Are Not Enough: A Critique of Elder Abuse Law," 31 ELDER LAW JOURNAL 279 (2024).
"Rights and Remedies: Rental Housing for Low-Income Households in the United States" (with Elise Papke), 25 MARQUETTE BENEFITS & SOCIAL WELFARE LAW REVIEW 1 (2023).
"Private Retirement Communities: The Marketing and Consumption of Age-Segregated Housing for Older Americans," 10 BELMONT LAW REVIEW 326 (2023).
"A Stage Set for Disaster: For-Profit Nursing Homes, Federal Law, and COVID-19," 1 JOURNAL OF ELDER POLICY 199 (2021).
"Segregation of a Different Sort: Age-Segregation in the Housing and Accommodations of Older Americans," 29 ELDER LAW JOURNAL 95 (2121).
"Challenges to Criminal Labeling; Three Voices in American Popular Music," 34 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE SEMIOTICS OF LAW, 191 (2020).
"Beware the Nanny State: Neoliberal Ideology and American Health Law Reform," 10 OPEN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 278 (2020).
"Ageism: A Powerful Nemesis for Effective Workplace Discriminination Law," 12 ALBANY GOVERNMENT LAW REVIEW 223 (2019).
CONTAINMENT AND CONDEMNATION; LAW AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE URBAN POOR (Michigan State University Press, 2019).
"A Foe More Than a Friend: Law and the Health of the Urban Poor" (with Elise Papke), 44 FORDHAM URBAN LAW JOURNAL 1 (2017).
"The Communistic Inclinations of Sir Thomas More," 48 UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC LAW REVIEW 29 (2016).
"Cinematic Anti-Legalism: Recent Hollywood Movies' Rejection of the Belief in Law," 44 JOURNAL OF POPULAR FILM AND TELEVISION 68 (2016).
"Postmodern Decline? The Belief in the Rule of Law As a Tenet of American Ideology," 1 ATHENS JOURNAL OF LAW 221 (2015).
"All It Ever Does Is Rain: Bruce Springsteen and the Alienation of Labor," 4 JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION 593 (2014).
"Perpetuating Poverty: Exploitative Businesses, the Urban Poor, and the Failure of Reform," 16 THE SCHOLAR 223 (2014).
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON LAW & POPULAR CULTURE (ed. with Michael Asimow & Kathryn Brown (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014).
"Oil and Water Do Not Mix: Constitutional Law and American Popular Culture," in LAW, CULTURE & VISUAL STUDIES (ed. Anne Wagner & Richard Sherwin) (Springer Publishing, 2014).
"Transracial Adoption in the United States: The Reflection and Reinforcement of Racial Hierarchy," 2013 UTAH LAW REVIEW 1041 (2013).