Legal reasoning requires identification through search of authoritative legal texts that apply to a given legal question. In this paper, using a network representation of US Supreme Court opinions that integrates citation connectivity and topical similarity, we model the activity of law search as an organizing principle in the evolution of the corpus of legal texts. The network model and probabilistic search behavior generates a Pagerank-style ranking of the texts that in turn gives rise to a natural geometry of the (...) opinion corpus. This enables us to then measure the ways in which new judicial opinions affect the topography of the network and its future evolution. While we deploy it here on the US Supreme Court opinion corpus, there are obvious extensions to large evolving bodies of legal text. The model is a proxy for the way in which new opinions influence the search behavior of litigants and judges and thus affect the law. This type of “legal search effect” is a new legal consequence of research practice that has not been previously identified in jurisprudential thought and has never before been subject to empirical analysis. We quantitatively estimate the extent of this effect and find significant relationships between search-related network structures and propensity of future citation. This finding indicates that “search influence” is a pathway through which judicial opinions can affect future legal development. (shrink)

Research on authentic learning has been predominantly focussed on skills-based training: there is a paucity of research on models of authentic learning available for adaptation in the humanities undergraduate classroom. In this article, I will seek to address this gap by proposing that legal trials are ideal models for designing authentic learning scenarios in undergraduate teaching and learning contexts, with a specific focus on the humanities. First, I discuss why and how the structure of legal trials can produce authentic learning (...) environments. Second, I present an undergraduate classroom project that combined two disciplinary fields – Shakespearean drama and criminal law – in an effort to enhance student learning and engagement. I outline how the authentic learning scenario was implemented and evaluated and, finally, reflect on the barriers, challenges and potentially transformative effect of authentic learning environments on students and educators. This new intervention combines legal studies... (shrink)

This article discusses ways in which academics and concerned individuals committed to the faster eradication of extreme poverty might make a contribution. It argues that this discussion needs to be informed by examining the lessons of academics who have been working in the development field for many decades tell us about success and failures and possible ways forward. Following the introduction, section two attempts to draw out from the work of academics, researchers and policymakers in the “world of development” what (...) we know and have learned about how best to accelerate the process of reducing extreme poverty in the world, and what “doesn't work”. Against this backdrop, the third section discusses different ways that academics from outside the professional development community might effectively contribute to the faster or more effective eradication of global poverty. It considers in particular some current knowledge gaps in the development field which might be bridged by academic from the fields of moral and political philosophy. Finally, section four provides a brief discussion of the types of anti-poverty organizations concerned individuals might support, providing a check-list of questions to help assess their approaches, strengths and weaknesses. It suggests that as the faster eradication of poverty requires a series of interventions on many different fronts, academics need to approach poverty eradication through a multifocal lens and prioritize support to effective and transparent anti-poverty agencies working at the local, national and international levels. (shrink)

This volume contains 17 articles on various aspects of Islamic thought in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. The first 9 articles concentrate especially on the Qur’ān and its exegesis, Kalām and Sufism; the second 8 articles deal with Javanese Islam, and with Islam and modernity in Southeast Asia.

This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.

This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.

The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. By Stephen J. Shoemaker. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 260. $59.95, £52.

This case study applies Integral Ecology to analyze the broad range of strategies environmentalists have undertaken to create protected areas and change forest practices in the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. Rainforest conservation efforts in the region promoted holistic, trans-disciplinary solutions and fostered agreement among diverse stakeholders, modeling an Integral Ecology approach. Environmentalists worked locally and globally, engaging with economic, cultural, political, and scientific systems to create change. The campaign involved transformations at personal and cultural levels that have enabled (...) negotiated solutions involving over twenty million acres of rainforest on British Columbia's coast. (shrink)

In the fearful ape hypothesis, Grossmann argues that heightened fearfulness increases human-unique cooperation. We suggest that this conclusion, however, may be premature. In particular, we question Grossmann's singling out of fear as the affective trait that enhances cooperative care. Additionally, we problematize the extent to which heightened fearfulness in humans, and its association with human-unique cooperation, are supported empirically.

Attempting to teach theater in an English Literature course is a daunting prospect. A far cry from the highly individual experience of reading a novel or poem, theater is both a visual and communal...

A follow-up to the critically acclaimed Sacred Journey, this is a guide to Godzone, the space inhabited by God. This is a book for travelers, those who have never quite settled in the world, who follow an inner urge, a voice that calls from the depths, a desire to explore the territory.Chapters for Mike Riddell's devoted readers include: -- The Lie of the Land -- Customs -- Dangers -- Traveling Companions -- The Last Frontier.

Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions. By Christian Lange. New York: Cambridge UniverSity Press, 2016. Pp. xvii + 365. $84.99, £54.99 ; $29.99, £18.99 ; $24.

The Fourth Congress of the Communist International, held in November–December 1922, shows evidence of member parties outside Soviet Russia taking initiatives and exerting significant influence on central political questions before world communism. On at least three issues, all related to united-front policy, non-Russian delegates’ pressure substantially altered Comintern Executive Committee proposals to the Congress. A central role in this process was played by leaders of the German Communist Party. The record of the Congress, newly available in English, also contains many (...) calls for increasing the authority of the Comintern Executive. Still, the influence of non-Russian delegations, in a context of frequent division among leading Bolsheviks, suggests that influence of front-line parties was significant and possibly growing in 1922, little more than a year before the Comintern took a sharp turn toward Russian-dominated bureaucratisation. (shrink)

Qur’anic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience. By Leyla Ozgur Alhassen. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Pp. viii + 175. $100 (cloth); $24.95 (paper); $24.95 (ebook).