Creon's Ghost examines the enduring problem of the relationship between man's law and a "higher" law from the perspective of core humanities texts and through discussion of hotly debated contemporary legal conundrums. Today, such issues as intelligent design in school curricula, same-sex marriage, and faith-based government grants are all examples of the interaction between man's law and some other set of moral principles. As these debates are considered in this book, the author uses texts such as Antigone and Plato's Republic and pairs them with the most important jurisprudence texts of the 20th century to explore different approaches to the contemporary conflict or court ruling under consideration. Creon's Ghost demonstrates that the humanities can both illuminate our understanding of contemporary problems and that "classic" texts can be read alongside jurisprudential texts, thus enriching our understanding of and appreciation for law.

Creon's ghost -- Shadows and light -- Rule and measure -- The ancient courts of ancient men -- Law breaking -- Law's practical theory -- Timeliness and justice -- A poet dies.

Adjudication between conflicting normative universes is always in a sense tragic. And what is called for is not to be found in an impersonal set of procedures. Rather, what is needed, Julen Etxabe argues, is a heightened awareness of the difficulty of judgment. The Experience of Tragic Judgment draws upon Antigone in order to consider this difficulty. Based on the transformative experience that the audience undergoes in engaging with this play, what is proposed is a reconceptualization of judgment: not as it is generally thought to occur in a single isolated moment, like the falling of an axe, but rather as an experience that develops in and through space and time.

María José Falcón y Tella invites us on a fascinating journey through the world of law and literature, travelling through the different eras and exploring eternal and as such current issues such as justice, power, resistance, vengeance, rights, and duties. This is an unending conversation, which brings us back to Sophocles and Dickens, Cervantes and Kafka, Dostoyevsky and Melville, among many others. There are many ways to approach the concept of “Law and Literature”. In the classical manner, the author distinguishes three paths: the Law of Literature, involving a technical approach to the literary theme; Law as Literature, a hermeneutical and rhetorical approach to examining legal texts; and finally, Law in Literature, which is undoubtedly the most fertile and documented perspective (the fundamental part of the work focusses on this direction). This timely volume offers an introduction to this enormous field of study, which was born in the United States over a century ago and is currently taking root in the European continent.

Challenges to Legal Theory offers the reader a fascinating journey through a variety of multi-disciplinary topics, ranging from law and literature, and law and religion, to legal philosophy and constitutional law. The collection reflects some of the challenges that the field of legal theory currently faces. It is compiled by a selection of international and Spanish scholars, whose essays are made available in English translation for the first time. The volume is based on a collection of essays, published in Spanish, in honour of Professor José Iturmendi Morales, of Complutense University, Madrid, and brings the rich scholarship of pre-eminent Spanish scholars of law and legal theory to an international audience.

Annotation This volume addresses the legacy of contemporary critiques of language for the concept of the rule of law. Can the rule of law be re-configured in light of the critical turn of the past several years in legal theory, rather than being steadfastly opposed to it?

Critical Queer Studies examines contemporary films and documentaries that dramatize the intersection of law and queer life, analyzing the effects of legal doctrines-jury selection, unwanted sexual advance, negligence, hate crimes, and gay marriage-on the production and reception of queer film and fiction. Exploring the interaction of these discourses by discussing internationally-known American films, the book demonstrates how the law maintains its hold over the queer subject through promoting certain ideological fictions and conversely how film and literature draw upon the material realities of queer legal status to dramatize conflicts between law and the marginalized subject. Critical Queer Studies synthesizes queer studies, law and literature, and film studies, engaging these fields to show how the struggle for gay and lesbian rights has influenced the production of film and fiction.