Morefield V United States Of America

Author : Matthew Guillen
Publisher : Academica Press,LLC
ISBN 13 : 193314629X
Total Pages : 688 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (331 download)

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Download or read book Reading America written by Matthew Guillen and published by Academica Press,LLC. This book was released on 2007 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is there a unique visual infrastructure that keeps and defines a culture? Professor Guillen discusses a culture built entirely on the visual modality and, most significantly, on that province of the visual we negotiate through the written word. Although this work analyzes features critical to the American legal tradition from its origins in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence to recent Supreme Court decisions---substantially exploring Judge Scalia's "originalist" movement and Posner's law and economics theories---the presiding agency remains the power of the written language to provide scaffolding to American culture. Writing, it is argued, contours: our worldview, our laws, morality, science, social problems, and affects film, media, broadcasting, comics and literary criticism. The effects of our national formation and the literature that sprung up to discuss the new nation and define its people have directly led to the evolution of our idiosyncratic legal and philosophical perspectives. The title of this work purposely carries a double meaning since it proposes to deal with a "reading of" American culture through its legal and cultural legacy as well as concluding with questions revolving around a well informed American "readership" essential for the preservation of the culture as well as the continued existence of a national collective conscience.