As another school year draws to a close at the University of Alberta, professors in the Faculty of Law are shifting gears from lecturing and grading to research, course preparation for next September, and lots of reading!
Are you wondering what we are up to? Or looking for a good book to pick-up? For a second year in a row, we’ve compiled a list of some of the books that professors will be tackling over the next four months, along with a brief description (in their own words) of why each book is of interest
Annalise Acorn [bio]
Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra
Pankaj Mishra is an impressive intellectual historian and has a lot of insight into collective emotion. This book promises to situate our current emotional malaise within its philosophical and historical context.
The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk
I heard Yascha Mounk on an episode of CBC Ideas recently and thought he had an uncommonly coherent understanding of the notion of populism along with some practical and doable ideas for how to turn the tide.
Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking by Cecelia Heyes
I’m especially looking forward to reading this book. I met the amazing Professor Heyes in Oxford a few years ago. She does very thoughtful work on the evolution of human cognition and consciousness. She is a serious cognitive scientist whose hypotheses are measured and firmly grounded in careful research and meticulous analysis.
Barbara Billingsley [bio]
Circe by Madeline Miller
This is the 2nd novel by this instructor of Latin and Ancient Greek. Her debut novel, The Song of Achilles, re-imagined the life ofAchilles, and it was an entertaining and educational read. Circe re-imagines the life of the daughter of Helios. It has received ravereviews and comes highly recommended by my daughter.
Guilty Pleasures - Comedy & Law in America by Laura E Little
This book, by an American legal scholar, appeals to me as part of my growing interest in the relationship between law and storytelling. Plus, it just sounds like fun.
Netflix shows I will be binging . . . although I will try to resist it, I expect to be dragged down the Stranger Things 3 rabbit hole (mostly for the1970's nostalgia).
Tamara Buckwold [bio]
The Wetiko Legal Principles: Cree and Anishinabek Responses to Violence and Victimization by Hadley Friedland
Prompted in part by last summer's faculty reading list, I recently purchased and plan to read Hadley Friedland’s book. Having learned something of Professor Friedland's research and thinking through formal presentations and informal conversation, I look forward to diving a little more deeply into her inspiring work.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
And as a continuation of last summer's project to read great works of literature that I should have read but haven't, I plan to read Bleak House- the book that tops most (though not all) of the "Best of Dickens" lists. I did read Middlemarchby George Eliot last year and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a long and thoroughly satisfying read.
Churchill, Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
I have yet to acquire but am considering this book. My interest was inspired by another excellent book I recently read: Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of An Empire, by Alex von Tunzelmann. Indian Summer is a fascinating and readable history of the period leading up to and immediately following the independence of India, rendered through an account of the lives and personalities of five people who played critical roles: Mohandas (Mahatma) Ghandi, Jawaharlal Nehru (first Prime Minister of India), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (first Governor-General of Pakistan), Louis Mountbatten (Last Viceroy of British India) and Mountbatten's wife, Edwina Mountbatten. The book mentions Churchill's attitude towards the Indian people and Indian independence in deservedly unflattering terms, and reminded me of his influence over the political landscape of a large swath of the globe.
Anna Lund [bio]
Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans’ Tenuous Right to Place by Esther Sullivan
Esther Sullivan reports on how tenants in mobile home parks experience mass-evictions, such as when a park is closed down for redevelopment. The book is based on Sullivan’s ethnographic fieldwork: she lived in parks in Florida and Texas during the closure process. I was drawn to this book because I frequently deal with Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act applications when assisting self-represented litigants in Masters Chambers.
No Fault of Their Own: Unemployment and the Canadian Welfare State 1914-1941 by James Struthers
My research focuses on insolvency law and I’ve recently been comparing personal bankruptcy law with employment insurance. Both systems of law can provide financial relief to people experiencing joblessness. Both systems try to distinguish individuals who are deserving of relief from those who are not. Struthers’s book studies the origins of Canada’s employment insurance system, and I’m looking forward to reading it as I learn more about this area of law.
Class Actions in Canada: The Promise and Reality of Access to Justice by Jasminka Kalajdzic
Jasminka Kalajdzic set out to empirically test the claim that the adoption of class action litigation in Canada has resulted in greater access to justice. To carry out this research project, she has grappled with the question of what access to justice means in practice. I hope to incorporate Professor Kalajdzic’s work into a course I am teaching this autumn on access to justice.
For fun, I’m looking forward to Eden Robinson’s new novel Trickster Drift and watching Season 5 of Start Trek: The Next Generation (*nerdy cackle*).
James Muir [bio]
Work, the Last 1000 years by Andrea Komlosy
I've had this for a year, but am finally getting to it. Komlosy is a German historical sociologist, and she argues that our discussion of work in Canada and the rest of the west is too focused on male breadwinner salaried work. In the process we ignore the wide range of unwaged work, especially by women, and the wide varieties of different ways work has been and continues to be experienced around the world. No one has seriously attempted a global history of work before.
A History of Law in Canada, volume 1: beginnings to 1866 by Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, and Blake Brown
This exciting book has been about a decade in the making, but draws together scholarship from the last 40 years. It opens with a long discussion of Indigenous legal traditions from the pre-contact/early contact era, and then analyses legal developments and experiences from both the rarefied heights of Constitutional law down to on-the-ground early policing and private law. I've dipped into a couple of chapters already, but am really looking forward to reading the whole thing.
Lawyers’ Empire: Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780-1950 by Wes Pue
Wes Pue died earlier this April. I first met him as an undergrad when he was a professor at the University of Manitoba, before moving to UBC Law. He was, personally, instrumental in getting me into studying legal history, a wonderful mentor, and a truly nice person. This collection brings together many of his historical articles, on the history of the legal profession and legal education in Canada and around the world. It was put together by colleagues three years ago when he first got sick, and I will devote some part of this summer to re-reading and reading the articles collected here, both to honour Wes's memory, and because he offers a lot to say about how lawyers think of themselves, and how they created the ideas of ethical, educated, practice in Canada and around the British empire, often at the expense of the less powerful, be they Indigenous, women, visible minorities, or the poor and working class.
Hillary Nye [bio]
Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law by Margaret Radin
This book brings together two of my interests: the Rule of Law and Contract Law. I've read some of Radin's articles before, but not a whole book, so I'm really keen to read this and think about how to bring more of my research on the Rule of Law to bear on the way I teach Contracts.
Things that Bother Me: Death, Freedom, the Self, etc. by Galen Strawson
With such a great title, who could not pick this up? These things do indeed bother me. My philosophy reading is usually in the realm of moral and political philosophy, so this is a little outside my comfort zone, but I picked it up in a bookstore in Seattle when I was visiting there last fall and was just very drawn in.
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro.
A dear friend gave this to me far too long ago and it has been sitting on my to-read pile forever! Now that I am living in Canada again it feels like the right time. Looking forward to having some fiction back in my life now that teaching is done!
Ubaka Ogbogu [bio]
Michael Ondaatje's Works of Fiction (aka The Ondaatje Summer)
I am reading every Michael Ondaatje novel I haven't read (so far, I have only read The English Patient and Warlight). I've been meaning to but never really dedicated any time to doing it. I feel it's time now. He's one of my favourite writers (in terms of style). A special storyteller gifted with lyricism and narrative. Reading him reminds me of listening to storytellers under the moonlight growing up. I can't remember many of those moonlight stories, but I remember the occasion with much nostalgia. Ondaatje's style is the occasion - it prepares you for any narrative. You get into it.
Patricia Paradis [bio]
Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Administrative Law and Judicial Deference by Matthew Lewans
And I may throw in a book by Louise Penny if I am in need of something lighter.
George Pavlich [bio]
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A brilliantly written book around World War II.
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
What happens when machines and social relation interact/collide? From reviews, this is as beautifully written as ever.
Economy and Society by Max Weber, translated by Keith Tribe
Returning to one of the classics in sociology and trying to get a better sense of the way that translation (especially by Talcott Parsons) has affected Weber's reception in North America.
Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory by Herbert Marcuse
Reputedly one of the best ways into Hegel’s complex ideas from an erstwhile leader in critical theory — clear and concise.
David Percy [bio]
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
This is the fourth volume in the Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series. I have read the first three, and they are absolutely superb. When I read volume 1, My Brilliant Friend, I thought of that the writer was a strange combination of Jane Austen on the one hand and Balzac or Dickens on the other. Instead of our heroine living a life of genteel poverty in the countryside, the heroine had a life of very un-genteel desperate poverty in a violent suburban slum of Naples. As I finished the third book last night, a New York Times reviewer put it much better, by saying that this is what would happen if Jane Austen really got angry!
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity by Phillipe Sands
Ratline, a BBC Podcast
"East-West Street" by Phillipe Sands was definitely my top choice for 2018. Eleanor Wachtel summarised the book as follows:
Philippe Sands' award-winning book East West Street is a work of nonfiction that's as gripping as any novel. It tells the remarkable story of four men who never actually met, but whose lives intersected in a moment of great historical significance; connected by a place — the city of Lviv, in what's now Ukraine — and the horrors of the Second World War.
Almost more intriguing than the book itself is a BBC podcast series called the Ratline, which is built upon the book and which does a great deal of original and absorbing research on how leading Nazis avoided capture and trial at Nuremberg through a well-organised network and, after about 1947, with considerable American assistance.
Drive your Plough over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
This book has been described as “a subversive, entertaining noir novel,” which tells the story of Janina Duszejko, an eccentric Polish woman in her sixties. “She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she's unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller… offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination - and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk's native Poland.”
Churchill, Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
I am not one of those ex-Brits who idolises Churchill, indeed I have not read any of his books nor any of the other biographies. However, the new biography is part of a genre including some of the best modern history books, which have a telling eye for details that enliven both the subject and the topic. For example, the book mentions that Churchill had never dialled telephone call himself until he was 74 years old. When he finally dialled a call for the first time, he received a recorded message and kept expressing his gratitude to the inanimate person who answered. The book is described as "detailed, but gripping" and impossible to put down. I actually find it quite easy to put down, because it weighs about 3 kg and runs to about 900 pages.
Sandra Petersson [bio]
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
I've listened to this book many times and it raises implications for the default systems that we build into our laws. It's going to need a old school read with a pencil on the porch at the lake.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
First off, there are not a lot of biographies about women lawyers out there. Second, my book club is reading it and I want to read at least one of the books we've picked for this year.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich
I was at a CBA meeting where this book was recommended as the best book for dealing with lawyers. Plus, I'm hoping it will give me (more) mom super powers.
Jennifer Raso [bio]
Vi by Kim Thúy
Vi is the latest book in Kim Thúy's series of books that offer a fictionalized, reflective account of her experience in South Vietnam after the north's military victory in the mid-1970s, including internment in a Malaysian refugee camp and eventual resettlement in Quebec as a refugee. Kim Thúy was a lawyer and translator before she became a full time writer. Her prose is concentrated: every word counts.
Uberland by Alex Rosenblat
Alex Rosenblat is a researcher with the socio-technical Data & Society project in NYC. In Uberland, she unpacks her research into how Uber has transformed employment relationships in Canada and the US. Her qualitative research centres the experiences of drivers in over 25 cities, illuminating their working conditions and exploring how drivers feel behind the wheel (and under the algorithm). This read is partly for pleasure, and partly for my research into how technologies and humans interact. Plus I may assign portions of this book in my new seminar course on law and technology, so I wanted to take a peek myself!
The Server: A Media History from the Present to the Baroque by Markus Krajewski
I've started reading this book already, but summer will give me a chance to dig into its densely detailed chapters. Markus Krajewski's The Server offers a media history account of present day computer "servers" (ftp, web, mail, etc.) that perform mundane drudgery behind the scenes. It also reminds us that "new" technologies are intimately connected to their social, cultural, and political contexts, as it connects the material design of digital servers to historical aspects of service from Baroque Europe forward. And it is a true bricolage of literary, scientific, and administrative texts, which is particularly fun to read.
Linda Reif [bio]
The Brexit saga (or nightmare depending on your perspective) has led me to some nonfiction for some background.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
I have to confess that I have already read this book because I couldn't put it down after reading the first few pages. If you wonder why the Good Friday Peace Agreement needs to be preserved through Theresa May's backstop, a customs union or no Brexit at all, this book provides a history of the Troubles by tracking the stories of two women, with a supporting cast of characters some of whom are still well known today. It illustrates the human and political tragedies of the sectarian conflict and subsequent weak transitional justice initiatives.
Churchill, Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
That I am also well underway with this book is an achievement for me given that in the past when I have tried to read biographies of Winston Churchill I have usually lost interest before he reaches World War I! While this book is long at 982 pages, it has kept my interest with its new sources, insightful views, humour and the panorama of UK, Irish and world history over his 90-year life.
Christopher Samuel [bio]
Legal Problem Solving by Maureen Fitzgerald
Synthesis: Legal Reading, Reasoning and Writing by Margaret McCallum
I'll be reviewing some legal research texts. I am deciding which, if any, books to use in the Legal Research and Writing curriculum next year.
Courts without Cases: The Law and Politics of Advisory Opinions by Carissima Mathen
I'm also excited to read this newly published book regarding reference cases. It’s the first comprehensive exploration of the phenomenon of reference cases, which are essentially legal advisory opinions written by the judiciary.
Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey
This is Book 1 of the Expanse series by James SA Corey. I'm a big Sci Fi fan, and am really looking forward to digging into a nice juicy space opera!
Péter Szigeti [bio]
Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of our Planetary Future by Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright
Ecolawgic: The Logic of Ecosystems and the Rule of Law by Bruce Pardy
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
I'm planning to read a number of books on political responses to global warming. These books will hopefully feed into my current writing project on an ecological conception of property.
Interpretation and Legal Theory by Andrei Marmor
Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts by Marianne Constable
Another series of books that I plan to read over the summer will form part of the foundations for my jurisprudence class in the fall on methods of interpretation.
Bruce Ziff [bio]
Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town by Beth Macy
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
Banjos: Roots and Branches edited by Robert Winans
Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber
