‘Demonstrative Evidence’: A Genealogy of the Racial Iconography of Forensic Art and Illustration

This essay stages a critique of the unacknowledged racialising visual regimes that inform forensic pathologys typical body charts. In order to disclose these unacknowledged regimes, I stage a genealogy of the racialising iconography that continues to shape forensic pathologys visual texts. In drawing attention to the racialising visual conventions that constitute the contemporary production of caucacentric forensic body charts, I attempt to disrupt the scientifico-objective status of these visual artefacts in order to underscore their ideological effects. By focusing on the ontological/epistemological split between the corporeality of native informants and white knowledge workers, I underscore the white medico-legal professions historical transmuting of other bodies into objects of knowledge. I conclude by outlining the discursive effects of presenting forensic pathologys caucacentric body charts as demonstrative evidence within the court of law.This is an extended version of an essay first presented at the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Conference, Cardozo Law School, New York University, New York, USA, March 2003. My thanks to Peter Goodrich and Penelope Pether for their generous enthusiasm and support.     

Social Connection to Neighbors,Multiple Victimization,and Current Health Among Women Residing in High Crime Neighborhoods

This study assessed current health [physical health, bodily pain, global distress, posttraumatic stress-related disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and illicit substance use] among 160 minority women residing in high crime areas with varying numbers of different types of victimization histories and varying levels of social connections (SCs) to neighbors. Multivariate analyses of covariance indicated a main effect for number of different types of victimization and for SC to neighbors, after considering ethnicity, immigration, and marital status. Women with two or three+ different types of victimization reported higher global distress, PTSD symptoms, and illicit substance use than women with zero or one type of victimization. Likewise, women with low levels of SC to neighbors reported higher bodily pain than women with high levels of SCs to neighbors.     

Humiliation,Manipulation, and Control: Evidence of Centrality in Domestic Violence Against an Adult Partner

This paper describes two related studies. Study 1 is a literature review of existing adult partner domestic violence assessment scales. Results of the review revealed that the scales varied on the available amount of empirical evidence for validity and reliability. More importantly, results showed that the content of the scales focused most heavily on the physical abuse aspects of domestic violence. Study 2 is a factor analysis performed on the results of 64 items taken from the Artemis Intake Questionnaire, a clinically relevant tool constructed by treatment providers used in working with the victims of domestic violence. Results indicate that reported humiliation and blame of the victim accounted for the largest amount of variance, followed by controlling the victim, and then physical violence. Results of this factor analysis suggest that greater emphasis must be put on factors other than physical violence in the construction of future domestic violence scales.     

Economic Libertarians and the Hyperlink: A Preliminary Investigation into an Ideological Practice

Use of the Internet by activists is part of contemporary politics, yet we understand little about the way in which this use is related to ideological production. This paper describes the basis for and discusses an on-going research project in its early stages that seeks to understand the use of hyperlinks to create meaning on the World Wide Web. It particularly focuses on the way in which economic libertarians in the U.S. have provided links to the web pages of likeminded individuals. I theorize these links as a social practice that is informing the way in which property rights are being understood by a highly influential group of lawyers and legal activists in the U.S. Through an analysis of the links found on the web pages of lawyers who have been working to advance a free market vision of property and economic rights, I speculate on a way to understand hyperlinking as meaning creation.Several people have assisted this research in various ways and deserve to be thanked. Heath Mills, my gradute assistant at Northern Illinois University spent many hours looking at and documenting web pages. I also wish to thank the members of the International Roundtable on Law and Semiotics, which met in Amherst, Massachusetts in April 2003, for their wonderful helpful comments.Finally, thanks to Brigham for always supporting my work and providing insightful commentary; and to Taag Ebert for patiently helping me translate the language of computer engineering into the language of political science and language studies.     

No Five-Finger Exercise: Digital Law to Manage Legal Complexity

This article considers the following. Digital coding of information is far less extensive than the complexity and much less radical than the digital coding of selection among information which establishes the legal system. Niklas Luhmanns theory is the principal example of an appreciation for the latter. Luhmann presented the design for understanding law as autopoietic, a law legitimated and sustained by legal procedure.