Directed Reading

First, let me thank Jim (Dean Chen) for graciously providing this forum to me. I will be using it to share my bibliographies on motley topics as well as for occasional musings on matters that fall, roughly, under the rubric of "law, politics and philosophy" (more on the latter later).

The bibliographies: These will be a bit (and unapologetically) idiosyncratic and confined in most cases to books in English. They will not be exhaustive although they should give one a good sense of the available literature in the chosen domain of inquiry. I began putting these together to aid my own research in the first instance and then thought they might help others, especially students, so, lacking a website, I started to individually distribute them. The response was gratifying and convinced me that they were indeed helpful, so I've continued to produce them by way of taking a break from more routine tasks and obligations. When I was in graduate school many years ago (the 1980s) I often spent an enormous amount of time trying to get a grip on the relevant literature on any given subject, believing this to be a prerequisite to writing anything of interest and value, especially after reading not a few articles or books by putative "specialists" in a field that showed an alarming lack of knowledge of the depth or breadth of the extant literature. Of course one can't, nor need, read everything. But these absences were often glaring and inexcusable and I was determined to do my best to familiarize myself with the bulk of literature in any intellectual field I happened to be exploring or hoped to explore. I often thought how wonderful it would be to have ready access to bibliographies of manageable length to guide audaciously amateurish ventures into unchartered intellectual territory.

Moreover, and despite all the understandable rhetoric surrounding the necessity of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary studies, professional socialization remains largely about specialization and thus it is very difficult for even those cautiously stepping outside their chosen field(s) of study to easily acquaint themselves with the necessary or best works in areas beyond their training. To be sure, there is the rare polymath or genius, and tenure does enable more time to be devoted to interdisciplinary pursuits should one be so inclined, but these are the exceptions that cement the rule. I lack tenure and I'm no polymath, let alone genius. Yet my status as a (very) part-time instructor at a community college with no academic ambition whatsoever (i.e., I'm not seeking a full-time position) and a spouse who permits me to earn far less than she does (at least for now), allows me to devote some time late into the evening and early into the morning (facilitated by insomnia, or at least an inability to sleep more than a few hours at a time) compiling these lists. I do hope you find them useful.

Jim is kindly taking the trouble to turn these into files accessible at this site and thus I will share them as he (somehow) finds the time to convert them. The first two bibliographies are on "bioethics" and "environmental and ecological worldviews," these being, presumably, two areas of interest to some Jurisdynamics bloggers and readers. An earlier draft of the first compilation was generously posted by Daniel Goldberg at his Medical Humanities Blog (where I sporadically guest blog) http://www.jurisdynamics.net/files/documents/bioethics_bibliography.doc

http://www.jurisdynamics.net/files/documents/environmental_and_ecological_worldviews.doc

Below are all of the bibliographies I've put together to date (and notice of one forthcoming) and plan to post here at Ratio Juris.

*American Indian Law (1st draft posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project)
*Analogy and Metaphor
*Animal Ethics, Rights, and Law (1st draft available at Leiter Reports, later draft at Center on Animal Liberation Affairs; also posted at Shabkar.org)
*Bioethics: A Basic Bibliography (1st draft posted at Daniel Goldberg's Medical Humanities Blog)
*Buddhism (1st draft posted at Buddha.net)
*Capital Punishment
*Chinese Medicine (Forthcoming)
*Christianity: A Selected Bibliography
*Classical Chinese Worldviews (circulated at several university-level courses on 'Confucianism')
*Comparative Law (Posted at the Transnational Law Blog and at the Legal Profession Blog)
*Conflict Resolution and Nonviolence
*Confucianism: A Selected Bibliography
*Constitutionalism (1st draft posted at Larry Solum's Legal Theory Blog)
*Criminal Law, Punishment & Prisons (posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project)
*Death & Dying: A Selected Bibliography (1st draft posted at Daniel Goldberg's Medical Humanities Blog)
*Democratic Theory and Praxis (published, in part, in two issues of the journal The Good Society)
*Ecological & Environmental Worldviews: A Basic Bibliography
*The Emotions (1st draft posted by Professor Thom Brooks at The Brooks Blog, 2nd draft forthcoming at Medical Humanities Blog)
*The Ethics, Economics & Politics of Global Distributive Justice (1st draft available at Leiter Reports, later draft forthcoming in reader on global justice; and early draft used in Professor Appelbaum's course, 'Global 2: An Introduction to Global Socioeconomic and Political Processes' in the Global & International Studies Program at University of California, Santa Barbara)
*Health Practice, Ethics & Law (posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project and at the Medical Humanities Blog)
*Hinduism: A Selected Bibliography
*Human Rights (1st draft posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project, 2nd draft posted at the Transnational Law Blog)
*International Law (1st draft posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project, 2nd draft posted at the Transnational Law Blog)
*Islamic Studies (early draft published in Ian Richard Netton's forthcoming Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion)
*Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
*Judaism: A Selected Bibliography
*Law & Literature (1st draft posted at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project)
*Marx & Marxism
*Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory (posted at Larry Solum's Legal Theory Blog; and at PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project)
*Science & Technology
*Slavery
*Terrorism
*Tort Law (posted at PrawfsBlawg for the 'research canons' project)
*The World of Work & Labor Law (posted at LaborNet.org, Workplace Prof Blog and PrawfsBlawg for 'research canons' project)
*Zionism