Jurisculture Hits 100 posts - by Alexandra Harrington and Amar Khoday

We at Jurisculture have reached a milestone. This writing marks Jurisculture’s 100^th post. On a (probably) cold New Year’s Day seven years ago this site was launched with our first post, “Envisioning Jurisculture”. In it, we shared our vision for what we wanted this site to be and represent. Back then we were two sprightly doctoral candidates at McGill University’s Faculty of Law pursuing our own research under the same supervisor – Dr. Frédéric Mégret.

Neither of our theses was directly connected to the interface of law and popular culture. Nevertheless, we were fascinated and struck by our mutual interest in the ways that forms of popular culture – films, television, music, literature, etc – connected to law to produce a popular and accessible jurisprudence. We created this site as a medium to explore this vibrant nexus. Of course, another way of looking at it was that watching movies and TV or listening to music provided a great tool for procrastination while writing about our reflections through blog postings gave it an intellectual legitimacy.  

Many years later, we’ve each produced dozens of blog postings while also managing to undertake our doctoral research, submit and successfully defend our respective theses. We’ve looked not only at how law is constructed and transmitted through popular culture but also (more recently) how the latter can serve as an important tool for legal education. We’ve looked at a range of topics and themes – Star Trek, American Idol, Sex and the City, reality shows, themes of resistance, ideas about equality, song lyrics, ballet, comedians, sport – to name several.  

In the coming years, we plan to keep posting and writing. In the next month or so, we plan to launch a Facebook page and Twitter feed to disseminate not only our writings, but also the work of others. We would like to take a moment to thank you – whether you have been a reader from the start or are just visiting Jurisculture for the first time. Without an audience to read our posts, follow us and share comments it would be far less exciting for us to find and share our ideas. We look forward to continue sharing our work with you.

Alexandra & Amar