The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons

Please join us for a panel discussion of Colin Dayan's book featuring:

• Colin Dayan, Robert Penn Warren Professor of Humanities at Vanderbilt University
• Rei Terada, Professor of Comparative Literature, UC Irvine
• Chris Tomlins, Chancellor's Professor of Law, UC Irvine

Moderator: Sara Han, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Society
Discussant: Jasmine Montgomery, Doctoral Student in Criminology, Law, and Society, UC Irvine

The Law Is a White Dog tackles key societal questions: How does the law construct our identities? How do its rules and sanctions make or unmake persons? And how do the supposedly rational claims of the law define marginal entities, both natural and supernatural, including ghosts, dogs, slaves, terrorist suspects, and felons? Reading the language, allusions, and symbols of legal discourse, and bridging distinctions between the human and nonhuman, Colin Dayan looks at how the law disfigures individuals and animals, and how slavery, punishment, and torture create unforeseen effects in our daily lives.

Sponsored by:

• School of Social Ecology
• UC Irvine Humanities Collective
• The Center in Law, Society, and Culture