Judging The Image

This book extends the cultural turn in legal and criminological studies by interrogating our responses to the image. It provides a space to think through problems of ethics, social authority and the legal imagination.

This book is here to give us all the side eye, showcasing our friends from the animal kingdom at their very sassiest. If the utter chaos of recent world events has taught us anything, it's that people are bad at making decisions. So, in uncertain times, we need someone to tell us like it is - and that someone is animals. As its title suggests, this book is literally just pictures of animals silently judging you and your life choices. Some of these include: a monkey who knows what you did last night, giraffes who can't believe you're wearing that, cats who just can't, and a corgi who isn't angry - just disappointed. Toward these sage angels we must turn, in these weird times for humankind, to help us make better decisions - for ourselves and our furry friends who are, honestly, kind of embarrassed.

How do books attract their readers? This collection takes a closer look at book covers and their role in promoting sales and shaping readers' responses. Judging a Book by Its Cover brings together leading scholars, many with experience in the publishing industry, who examine the marketing of popular fiction across the twentieth century and beyond. Using case studies, and grounding their discussions historically and methodologically, the contributors address key themes in contemporary media, literary, publishing, and business studies related to globalisation, the correlation between text and image, identity politics, and reader reception. Topics include book covers and the internet bookstore; the links between books, the music industry, and film; literary prizes and the selling of books; subcultures and sales of young adult fiction; the cover as a signifier of literary value; and the marketing of ethnicity and lesbian pulp fiction. This exciting collection opens a new field of enquiry for scholars of book history, literature, media and communication studies, marketing, and cultural studies.

This book examines social aspects of humour relating to the judiciary, judicial behaviour, and judicial work across different cultures and eras, identifying how traditionally recorded wit and humorous portrayals of judges reflect social attitudes to the judiciary over time. It contributes to cultural studies and social science/socio-legal studies of both humour and the role of emotions in the judiciary and in judging. It explores the surprisingly varied intersections between humour and the judiciary in several legal systems: judges as the target of humour; legal decisions regulating humour; the use of humour to manage aspects of judicial work and courtroom procedure; and judicial/legal figures and customs featuring in comic and satiric entertainment through the ages. Delving into the multi-layered connections between the seriousness of the work of the judiciary on the one hand, and the lightness of humour on the other hand, this fascinating collection will be of particular interest to scholars of the legal system, the criminal justice system, humour studies, and cultural studies.

Must judges be trained as lawyers in order to be effective in office, or can nonlawyers serve equally well? This question has long provoked controversy among lawyers, judges, legislators, and the public. In her empirical study of the place of the nonlawyer judge in the American legal system, Doris Marie Provine concludes that, despite the opposition of the legal profession to nonlawyer judges, they are as competent as lawyers in carrying out judicial duties in courts of limited jurisdiction. Provine presents a persuasive argument that the case against nonlawyer judges has been weighted in favor of the professional interests of lawyers, not public concerns. Her examination reveals as much about the presuppositions of legal professionals as it does about the competency of nonlawyer judges to old judicial office. To substantiate her claims, Provine has conducted the most comprehensive survey of nonlawyer and lawyer judges yet undertaken, augmenting this material with court observations and extensive interviews of judges. She integrates the results of this survey into the historical context of the lay versus lawyer judge debate, showing how the legally trained judge came to predominate in the American judicial system and analyzing in detail the campaign both in and out of the courts to make legal training a prerequisite for being a judge. Ultimately, Provine suggests, Americans are too committed to the significance of credentials and to the legal profession's vision of the judicial process to respond very favorably to nonlawyer judges, however well they might perform. Judging Credentials will force lawyers, judges, scholars, and the public to reconsider the role nonlawyer judges play in the American judicial system. Provine's provocative views and exhaustive research adds new dimensions to our understanding of the ethics of professionalism and its consequences.

Fifth Edition. Written by the prominent art historian and authentication expert David Rudd Cycleback, Judging the Authenticity of Photographs: The Basics for Collectors covers the essentials to identifying, dating, understanding and authenticating photographs from the origins in the 1800s to today. It covers the whole range of photos, from tintypes to Polaroids, cabinet cards to wirephotos, salt prints to family snapshots, movie stills to real photo postcards. Topics include identification of photo processes, dating styles, identifying images made from the original negatives, stamps and tags, identifying fakes and reprints, and more. A concise guide essential for starting collectors and amateur genealogists to veteran auctioneers, dealers and historians.

This Short Introduction looks at judging and reasoning from three perspectives: what legal reasoning has been; what legal reasoning is from the view of judges and jurists themselves (the internal view); and what legal reasoning is from the view of a social scientist epistemologist or humanities specialist (the external view). Combining cases and materials with original text, this unique, concise format is designed for students who are starting out on their law programmes, as well as for students and researchers who would like to examine judging and legal reasoning in more depth.