The Arts and the Legal Academy
Beyond Text in Legal Education
Edited by Zenon Bankowski, Maksymilian Del Mar, Queen Mary, and Paul Maharg
Ashgate, London, 2012, 248 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-4094-2911-1
In Western culture, law is dominated by textual representation. Lawyers, academics and law students live and work in a textual world where the written word is law and law is interpreted largely within written and printed discourse. Is it possible, however, to understand and learn law differently? Could modes of knowing, feeling, memory and expectation commonly present in the Arts enable a deeper understanding of law’s discourse and practice? If so, how might that work for students, lawyers and academics in the classroom, and in continuing professional development?
Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners internationally from the fields of legal education, legal theory, theatre, architecture, visual and movement arts, this book is evidence of how the Arts can powerfully revitalize the theory and practice of legal education. Through discussion of theory and practice in the humanities and Arts, linked to practical examples of radical interventions, the chapters reveal how the Arts can transform educational practice and our view of its place in legal practice. Available in enhanced electronic format, the book complements
Contents
Introduction, Zenon Bankowski, Maksymilian Del Mar and Paul Maharg
Part I General and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Connectionism, moral cognition and collaborative problem solving, Andy Clark
Losing the plot: moving beyond text in educational practice, Anne Pirrie and James Benedict Brown
Physical literacy in legal education: understanding physical bodily experiences in the dance environment to inform thinking processes within legal education, Sophia Lycouris and Wendy Timmons
Part II The Arts and Law Schools
Playing games with law, Suzanne Bouclin, Gillian Calder and Sharon Cowan
From interpretive imagination to contingency in law: an argument for moving beyond text, Elaine Webster
Analysis and the arts, Nancy B. Rapoport; Mapping the lawscape: spatial law and the body, Andreas Philippopoulos- Mihalopoulos
The moving experience of legal education, Gary Watt
The battle of the precedents: reforming legal education in Mexico using computer assisted visualization, Panagia Voyatzis and Burkhard Schafer
Part III The Arts and Legal Professionals
Is ‘beyond text’ now within reach? Making a case for infusing the arts into the law firm experience, Valerie Fitch
Were you with me? Creativity, dialogue and self-expression in legal process narratives, Miriam Aziz
‘You are here’: learning law, practice and professionalism in the academy, Karen Barton, John Garvey and Paul Maharg
Beyond the text: critique and creativity, Bruce Anderson and Kim Morgan
Index.
Zenon Bańkowski is Emeritus Professor of Legal Theory at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh and a community mediator. He was Principal Investigator of the AHRC Beyond Text in Legal Education Project, based at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh.
Paul Maharg is Professor of Legal Education in the School of Law, University of Northumbria (UK). Prior to this he was Professor of Law, University of Strathclyde, where he was Co-Director of Legal Practice Courses and Director of the innovative Learning Technologies Development Unit. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a National Teaching Fellow (2011) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (www.thersa.org ). He is Adjunct Professor, Australian National University, Canberra. He publishes widely on legal education, co-edits two book series (Emerging Legal Education and Digital Games and Learning), and blogs at .
Maksymilian Del Mar is Lecturer in Legal and Social Philosophy at the Department of Law, Queen Mary, University of London (UK). He has a PhD in Law from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in Social Science from the University of Lausanne. He is Co-Convenor of the Legal Theory and Legal History Research Group at Queen Mary.
