Kieran Mark Tranter

Interrogating absence: the lawyer in science fiction

Abstract This article argues that whilst concepts of law and justice can be seen as prominent in much science fiction, the role of lawyer is mostly absent. This article interrogates these absences and asks whether they can be traced back to contemporary concerns around professional ethics. Three potential absences are noted; firstly, justice is considered as immanent. In these fictional futures lawyers have become unnecessary due to the immediacy of the legal system. The second conceptualisation portrays lawyers as intertwined with corporate interests. In these speculative moments lawyers have become culturally indistinguishable from other types of corporate entities. The final science fictive texts highlight a desire for the lawyer-hero. In these texts justice is overwhelmingly absent and shows a continuing need for legal professionals. Each of these cultural moments presents important questions for current understandings of professional ethics and the regulatory systems in which they are based. A removal of lawyers from our shared understandings of the future is indicative of potential problems with perceptions of professional ethics in the present.

“Frakking Toasters” and Jurisprudences of Technology : The Exception, the Subject and Techné in Battlestar Galactica

Abstract This article concerns jurisprudence’s lack of engagement with the technical. This is the message from the recent television series Battlestar Galactica (2003–2006). Analysis of the series moves through concerns in legal theory regarding the exception in the wake of 9/11, and also questions of gender, race, and biology. Through revealing the problem of the subject “in concrete” for talk of the exception, and the transposition of biology through technology, it offers the image of “techno-humanity” as a direction for jurisprudential thought.

‘You gotta roll/rule with it’: Oasis and the concept of law

This article analyses HLA Harts legal positivist theory through the life and music of the English band Oasis. It is argued that bringing Hart and Oasis into co-orbit reveals a fundamental ambiguity and anxiety within Harts jurisprudential performance. It is argued that Oasis’ self-confidence compares to Harts certainty of a distinction between law and morality and Oasis’ populism echoes Harts claim of law as dependent on communal assent. However, an examination of Oasis also makes visible an essential critique of the certain and voluntary nature of Harts system. Oasis’ performances, on and offstage, highlight the undisclosed essentiality of violence within The Concept of Law that betrays ambiguity and anxiety regarding core elements of Harts jurisprudential performance; the role of officials and the clarity of rules.

The Speculative Jurisdiction: The Science Fictionality of Law and Technology

This article argues that scholarship on law and technology is a thoroughly speculative activity. The textual signifiers of this speculative orientation are the multiple incursions of science fiction that locate and justify lawyers writing about technology. Through a detailed examination of three law and technology literatures – on early space technology, IVF and virtual worlds – it will be shown that science fiction is the storehouse of images and imaginings that substantiate the legal projection of technological futures. When law confronts technology, science fiction is its speculative jurisdiction. The suggestion is that through a more through-going engagement with science fiction as the speculative jurisdiction, law could engage more adequately with the complexities and contingencies of technological change.

Terror in the Texts: Technology – Law – Future

This paper is concerned withlaws failure and need to manifest theessentiality of technology for the West. Thiswill be shown through a critical reading of therelated fictional and juridical projects ofAmerican golden age science fiction and spacelaw. This analysis involves sensitivity to theterrors that bind together technology, law andthe future. It is argued that cornucopia, thevictory of modernism through technology, ispresented in science fiction and space law asterrorised by its other – dystopia. Thisterrorising means that cornucopia activelyresists dystopia. However, this resistiveenterprise is flawed – cornucopia never escapesdystopia. Alternative images of humanity andtechnology are needed to escape these flawedimaginings of the West. The paper concludesthat the cyborg offers the potential for aregenerative thinking about technology and law.

A Just (Electric Lady) Land: Jimi Hendrix and John Rawls

Abstract This article argues that the life and work of rock musician Jimi Hendrix reveals that John Rawlss A Theory of Justice is politically inert. Rawls sought to convince of the principles needed for a just society via an abstract scenario of his own making. Comparably, Hendrix attempted to free the minds of his listeners by depicting, through his surreal lyrics and prismatic guitar playing, mental journeys to elevated states of awareness. Hendrixs depictions of ineffable internal states elucidate the difficulties of utilizing the abstract to improve real-world justice. The psychedelic “trips” on which Hendrix takes his listeners parallel the hallucinatory nature of Rawlss vision: the divestment of identity demanded by Rawlss logic alienates his plan for society from the imperatives of life in the political world.

Automobility and ‘My Family’ stickers

In this paper we explore the phenomena of ‘My Family’ stickers; the growing trend of stick-figure decals affixed to the rear window of motor vehicles. We suggest that the ‘My Family’ equipped vehicle generates excessive meanings about family, about road culture, about success and about forms of Australian belonging. It is argued that to represent ‘My Family’ on a motor vehicle is to stake a claim for belonging in a context where that belonging is challenged. Scaffolded by the semiotics of the motor vehicle we highlight how ‘My Family’ stickers demark a desire to belong: to a specific family unit, to a vision of feminine success, to white middle Australia – yet at the same time highlight the lack. Ultimately, we speculate that the placement of these decals on a vehicle shows a wanting to belong but also exposes anxieties about that belonging.

Biotechnology, Media and Law-Making: Lessons from the Cloning and Stem Cell Controversy in Australia 1997-2002

This paper reports on a large media study of the Australian newspapers’ reporting on the cloning and stem cells controversy for the period 1997 to 2002. It is found that the media framed the technologies that were subject to the controversy (reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning, embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research) according to certain scripts that either presented the technologies as causing anxiety or promising progress. These cultural scripts were ultimately worked together in the media to present a compromise that minimised the anxiety and maximised the progress. It is further argued that this framing was repeated in Commonwealth Parliament during debate on the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002 (Cth). It is suggested that this has implications for legal scholarship on law and technology; namely it opens understanding of legal responses to technology to the cultural context through which technologies are popularly communicated and how this context informs and structures the law-making process.

Echo and Mirror: Clone Hysteria, Genetic Determinism and Star Trek Nemesis

This essay examines the hysteria that surrounded cloning and the law that this hysteria called forth in Australia in 2002. Through a parallel reading of two accounts of clones, the public record of cloning that ended with the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth), and Star Trek: Nemesis, it argues that instead of fearing the clone, it is clone hysteria that should be feared. Star Trek: Nemesis exposes the constitute anxieties (clone as double, clone as artefact) of clone hysteria, and offers a partial critique. In doing so it points to the foundational place of genetic determinism in thinking about cloning. Although its critique turns out to be illusionary, the film highlights the need for addressing genetic determinism in clearer thinking and lawmaking about clones and cloning. Law, Culture and the Humanities 2007; 3: 361—380

After Pelka: Marriage-like relationships under social security law

This article argues that Re Pelka and Secretary, Department of Family and Community Services changes the interpretation of the marriage-like relationship rule in the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) in two small, but important ways. It clarifies the financial elements of the rule and suggests an interpretation that would lead to more structured decision-making.