Recovering the Indigenous Legal Traditions of India: Classical Hindu Law in Practice in Late Medieval Kerala

The collection of Malayalam records entitled Vanjeri Grandhavari, taken from the archives of an important Namputiri Brahmin family and the temple under its leadership, provides some long-awaited information regarding a wide range of legal activities in late medieval Kerala. The organization of law and the jurisprudence represented by these records bear an unmistakable similarity to legal ideas found in dharmastra texts. A thorough comparison of the records and relevant dharma texts shows that landholding Namputiri Brahmins, who possessed enormous political and economic power in the region, mediated the implementation of dharmastra into the legal system. From this comparison arise new understandings of law and legal categories such as custom and positive law. Moreover, such comparisons begin to elucidate the problems involved in Western assumptions that it is textual law, not its interpretation and application by humans, which controls behavior. The Vanjeri records demonstrate not only the importance of dharmastra as a historical document but also the manner and extent to which dharmastra provided the foundation for legal systems in Kerala as well as in other regions of India.     

Municipal politics and government: development of the field in Canadian political science

Abstract. Following what has become almost a tradition within the Canadian discipline of political science, this paper attempts an analysis of the development of one field in that discipline. In a sense, a main purpose of the paper is to define the boundaries of the field, an exercise which, given the nature of the field, results in a rather personal definition. Two approaches are taken. First there is a review of the Canadian literature since 1886. That review helps identify the more important sub-fields and analytical approaches. Secondly, the paper reports on a survey of the ways the field is presently taught in Canadian universities and colleges. Assuming that an image of a discipline or of a field is most accurately obtained by examining both writings over time and teaching approaches, the analysis proceeds to identify some of the problems within the field, and offers suggestions for future development of it. The author concludes that because of the highly eclectic nature of the field, in terms of both scope of subject matter and in approaches to analysis, there is a need for more integration among the sub-fields.     

Breaking and Entering My Own Computer: The Contest of Copyright Metaphors

In the current debate over copyright law, those who support maximum copyright protections have advanced their agenda largely via the metaphor of ownership in physical property. As part of this metaphorical system, they have successfully argued that digital rights management (DRM) systems deserve legal protections befitting locked doors. This article is a discourse analysis of this related system of metaphors and of opponents' metaphorical and non-metaphorical responses. Scholars who oppose the maximalist vision of copyright have devoted considerable thought to the problem of metaphors, including especially the search for metaphors that can challenge the metaphor of property. The article concludes there is work yet to be done on this count. As an incremental contribution to this conversation, the article suggests additional arguments, including additional metaphors in search of a new means to conceptualize copyright law.