Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Studies of language and the law in the last several years have revealed linguistic practices that can unfairly bias sexual assault verdicts agains the alleged victim. For example, jurors tend to perceive women at rape trials as using a "powerless" form of speech, whether the women in fact are doing so or not. But such speech is interpreted as less credible simply because of linguistic style. Defense counsel also subtly appeal to gendered story themes from the broader culture to undermine witness credibility. A variety of reforms have been proposed, including expert witnesses to aid jurors in recognizing their biases, special jury instructions, "translators" to render questioning techniques less misleading, and uninterrupted victim narratives. These proposed reforms have made little headway in the courts or legislatures. This talk proposes that one important factor in this resistance to change is a judicial and legislative fear and misunderstanding of the nature of unconscious mental processes, for all these language biases take place at the level of the unconscious. The talk will explore the sources of this legal confusion about the unconscious and the ways that the confusion manifests itself in substantive criminal law and the law of evidence, especially in rape cases. The talk will conclude with recommendations on how social scientists can help legal decisionmakers to improve their attitude toward the unconscious, thus enhancing the prospects of future reform.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: See paper

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although collective memory and the social construction of memory have an intimate connection, the two approaches have somewhat disparate objects of analysis. Halbwachs’ classical work on collective memory focuses on the relationship between individual memory and the social collective. As classical approaches to the sociology of knowledge grow less popular, the study of the social construction of memory relates less to Karl Mannheim’s question of “how men actually think,” and more to the analysis of collective memory in terms of specific cultural objects or figures and the way that they are memorialized. Indeed, cultural sociologists have made major contributions to our understanding of the way that social groups memorialize and sustain beliefs about their own histories. However in this essay I argue that a production of culture approach fails to take into account the constitution of memory itself. As a result of such limitations in the sociology of culture, sociology is not in dialogue with scholars in other disciplines that address cultural memory. This paper suggests a return to foundational theories of collective memory and, by consequence, to the classical question raised by Emile Durkheim on the relationship between the individual and society. Although this paper is not based on empirical research, this essay is an attempt to broaden the scope of sociological thought on memory by placing Halbwachs in conversation with Sigmund Freud and contemporary work on cultural memory.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The preeminent U.S. “grand strategy” was “containment,” devised by diplomat and policy-planner George F. Kennan in 1946. Despite common understanding, for Kennan “containment” was not principally about stopping apparent Soviet expansionism, but about the cultivation of a subjective attitude in American public opinion that was decidedly stoic: in “containment,” Kennan called Americans to tolerate totalitarianism and rationally calculate national interest vis-à-vis self-preservation. “Containment,” in other words, entailed a kind of “care of the (national) self.” Importantly, Kennan came to believe that America had failed miserably in this subjective and ethical project. Irrational forces, he believed, dominated American public opinion and government. I argue that Kennan’s “containment” was part of a larger Freudian cultural moment in American history. Possessed by anxieties about mass hysteria, herd instincts, and perversion, Kennan participated in a larger Freudian moment that turned opinion- and policy-makers toward a basically stoic ethic emphasizing the rational restraint of the irrational. “Containment,” mediated through Freud, was basically stoicism writ large.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed