Synopses & Reviews
Many of America's most important social and political movements--abolition, women's suffragette, civil rights, women's liberation, gay and lesbian rights--have organized in the shadow of the law. All are based in their theoretical opposition to the law. Yet at the same time, they are dependent on the laws that prohibit them. Law is thus formed as much through the dynamic tensions that govern how these laws are received as through their official decree.
Legal forms such as contracts, property, and rights also constitute social and political life because they structure our world. John Brigham here focuses on four ideological movements and their strategies, among them the struggle over the closing of gay bathhouses in the early years of the AIDS crisis and the radical feminist use of rage and radical consciousness in anti- pornography campaigns. The effect of law on politics, Brigham convincingly reveals, is pervasive precisely because political life finds its expression in a surprising variety of legal forms.
Review
"Debra Weinstein's Rodent Angel is a beautifully crafted book."
-The Lesbian Review of Books,
Review
"In the wake of legal realism, it has become commonplace to question the distinction between law and politics. Usually, this is accomplished by asserting that law is a creature of politics, with legal doctrines serving as a mere medium for the conveyance of normative political preferences. In The Constitution of Interests, however, Professor Brigham demonstrates that the causal arrow also points in the opposite direction. Political and ideological movements can be understood as products of the very legal concepts that they seek to transcend. Brigham's thesis is thoughtful, carefully constructed, and tantalizing in its implications."-Girardeau A. Spann,Professor Law, Georgetown University
Review
"The strengths of the book are many. The theme is well conceived and argued. It is thought provoking and informative. The author has done his homework. . . . [and] does a good job of weaving his theme from chapter to chapter." -The Law and Politics Book Review,
Review
"Highly recommended." -Choice,
Review
"John Brigham's work is always at the cutting edge of law and politics research. This book is the clearest statement yet of the newest research direction, one that takes as its key words, 'constitute,' 'discourse,' and 'practice.'" -Martin Shapiro,School of Law,University of California, Berkeley
Synopsis
Rodent Angel is a story of innocence and betrayal; of the death drive and the drive to create-a violent, powerful story about the human family. With an unflinching eye, Debra Weinstein writes of live and destruction and gives us insight in the telling. In these spare, elegant lyrics, the poet slowly advances on her subject until it is trapped in the reader;s palm. Rodent Angel is a book where pieces and fragments of a picture emerge before the entire picture-and just when you think that the writer has resolved an issue it reemerges in another form. These are poems of no uncertain terms. Whether she is singing of loss or her coming child, Debra Weinstein's voice is gutsy and uncompromising.
About the Author
Debra Weinstein's poems have appeared in
The American Poetry Review,
The American Voice, and
Tikkun, she is recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. She lives in New York City.