On our last leges: Uncommon law

Date

2023

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Duke UP ; Indiana UP

Abstract

Common law is predicated historically upon a sense of the common, of custom and use time out of mind. The legal tradition has its roots in a guild, an elite community whose common opinion and conversations provided the substance and sensibility of the normative. Remediation of law, meaning here the changing media of legal transmission, the imaginal turn in the streamed and viral relays of law and its enforcement, confront a monochrome and linear textual tradition, the regimentations of the page, with the fragmentary and anarchic optics of online platforms and social media bytes and nibbles. Increased online visibility, this essay argues, forces the guild to face up to an expanded commons, the diversity of colors, the heuristics of the eye, and the nuances of viewing.

Description

Scholarly article

Keywords

common law, legal tradition, online visibility

Citation

Goodrich, P. (2023). On our last leges, Uncommon law. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 34(3), 175-200.