Gardens or Graveyards of Scholarship? Festschriften in the Literature of the Common Law

Keeping the dream alive: the European Court of Justice and the transnational fabric of integrationist jurisprudence

“…To be sure, creating and publishing Festschriften involves a whole economy of effort and investments such as 'initiating, commissioning, composing, compiling, editing, proof-reading, and generally organizing the volume prior to publication' (Macalister-Smith and Schwietzke, 2002: 369; see also Taggart, 2002). I would actually argue the contrary.…”

“…One indicator of this lies in the fact that, although they are of almost no legal value and are time consuming, they are, however, organized with great care and remain very popular. To be sure, creating and publishing Festschriften involves a whole economy of effort and investments such as ‘initiating, commissioning, composing, compiling, editing, proof-reading, and generally organizing the volume prior to publication’ (Macalister-Smith and Schwietzke, 2002: 369; see also Taggart, 2002). Most of the time, it also requires the launch of a subscription among contributors and others, engagement in fund-raising to finance these usually very long volumes (there are often two volumes or more) and often the organization of a presentation ceremony.…”

Stephen Chrisomalis and André Costopoulos, eds. Human Expeditions: Inspired by Bruce Trigger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013, 316pp., 8 figs., 1 table, pbk, ISBN 978-1-4426-1422-2)

“…I pressed him to explain why and he replied that he found festschrift volumes a waste of time because they usually lacked coherence and frequently consisted of papers that the authors could not publish elsewhere. Critics like Haury have clearly identified the cardinal sins of the genre and for these sins such volumes do not sell well (Taggart, 2002;Tulving, 2007;Harris, 2010;Richetti, 2012;Klingbeil, 2014). Publishers are torn when the scholarly community wants to honour a significant scholar, especially if that scholar published with their press.…”

“…Emil Haury's comments capture some of the faults of the festschrift/memorial that makes them problematic as scholarly products (Taggart, 2002;Tulving, 2007;Harris, 2010;Richetti, 2012;Klingbeil, 2014). These problems can be roughly grouped into thematic issues and problems of quality.…”

“…Scholars may hesitate to contribute their best work. The festschrift/memorial can become a graveyard for good papers buried in a book that only the honouree and the contributors may wish to read and that will be of only partial interest to others (Taggart, 2002;Richetti, 2012) Despite the editors' protests to the contrary, Human Expeditions is a memorial and it commits the usual cardinal sins of the festschrift/memorial genre. The volume consists of a miscellany of variable quality that covers scattered subjects.…”