Memory, Imagination, Justice

Intersections of Law and Literature
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7546-7103-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)

Buch, Englisch, 226 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 499 g

Through the creative use of literary analysis, Memory, Imagination, Justice provides a critical and highly original discussion of contemporary topics in criminal law and bioethics. Author David Gurnham uses popular and classical texts, by authors including Shakespeare, Dickens, Euripides, Kafka, the Brothers Grimm, Huxley and Margaret Atwood to shed fresh light on such controversial legal and ethical issues as passionate homicide, life sentences, child pornography and genetic enhancement. Gurnham’s overarching theme is the role of memory and imagination in shaping legal and ethical attitudes. Along this line, this book examines the ways in which past wrongs are remembered and may be forcefully responded to, both by the criminal justice system itself and also by individuals responding to what they regard as gross insults, threats or personal violations. The volume further discusses the role of imagination as a creative force behind legal reform, in terms of the definition of criminal behaviour and the possible future development of the law. These ideas provide a useful and highly original perspective on contemporary issues of crime and society as they resonate both in legal and literary discussion.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gurnham, David

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part 1 Memory, or Ghosts of Violence Past; Chapter 1 ‘My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!’ Hamlet, Hot Blood and Malice Aforethought; Chapter 2 ‘She has her just deserts by your unjust act’: Electra, Revenge and the (Im)possibility of a Just Cause; Chapter 3 ‘Abandon every hope all you who enter’: Punishment, Communication and the Longevity of the Whole Life Sentence; Part 2 Childhood Innocence, or the Frozen Present; Chapter 4 ‘What sharp teeth you have, Grandmother!’ Grimm’s Tales of Innocence and Experience; Chapter 5 Innocence, the Image and the Unseen Paedophile: Spotting Indecency in Images of Children; Chapter 6 ‘I must not let anyone in; the seven dwarves have forbidden me to do so’: The Violence of Innocence; Part 3 Imagination, or Ghosts of Violence Yet to Come; Chapter 7 ‘What they are, yet I know not: But they shall be the terrors of the earth’: Nightmares of Science/Fiction; Chapter 8 Science Fiction and the Sadness of biotechnology: Deconstructing Conservative Nostalgia;

Über Autor(innen)

Dr David Gurnham is a Reader in Law at the University of Southampton. He teaches and researches in the areas of Literary Jurisprudence, Criminal Law and Healthcare Law and Ethics.