The Semiotics of Law in Legal Education

Abstract

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.Cover design: eStudio Calamar S.L. Printed on acid-free paperSpringer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) v This book on semiotics of law in legal education is not a theoretical essay about semiotics or pedagogy. Rather, this is a study of the educational experiences in a seminar course, including reflections on the issues involved and fragmentary results rather than presenting a comprehensive theory. The subject of legal semiotics-the scientific approach that regards law as a system of signs and meanings-is not a topic in the programs of US or EU Law Schools, although signs and meanings are at home in the context of laws of different national, political and cultural character. The book introduces education in legal semiotics as it evolves within a program of the Dickinson School of Law, Penn State University. That University harbored extensive legal semiotic research by Roberta Kevelson, then Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at its Berks campus in the last decades of the twentieth century. The actual Seminar is named in her honor. Teachers, collegially interested scholars and students contributed texts that are written to deepen the insight of lawyers and laymen alike. All of the participants in the seminar experienced the power of semiotic analyses and the need to become aware of law's limitless potency to create meanings.