Private Law Theory

Barbara Young Welke, The Cowboy Suit Tragedy: Spreading Risk, Owning Hazard in the Modern American Consumer Economy, 101 Journal of American History 97 (2014). ‘Legal interpretation’, Robert Cover famously wrote, ‘takes place in a field of pain and death’. Honoring Cover’s important insight is one of the great challenges of legal scholarship. As we use our expertise to explore the nooks and crannies of our ‘legal world’ – the clever transactional devices, complex regulatory schemes, and jurisdictional puzzles — do we recognize the state-inflicted and -sanctioned violence on which this world depends? Barbara Young Welke’s The Cowboy Suit Tragedy is a powerful example of how to write about law without losing sight of what Cover calls the ‘bodies on the line’ … (more)

[Karen Tani, JOTWELL, 12 September]

First posted 2014-09-12 12:00:00