Law

LAW'S INFAMY

Understanding the Canon of Bad Law Edited by AUSTIN SARAT, LAWRENCE DOUGLAS, and MARTHA M. UMPHREY

An analysis of how problematic laws ought to be framed and considered

However abhorrent a legal decision might be—whether Dred Scott v. Sanford or Plessy v. Ferguson—the stories we tell of the law’s failures refer to their injustice and rarely label them in the language of infamy. Law’s Infamy seeks to alter that course by making legal actions and decisions the subject of an inquiry about infamy. Taken together, the essays demonstrate how legal institutions themselves engage in infamous actions and urge that scholars and activists to label them as such.

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. Lawrence Douglas is the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought and Chair of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College. Martha M. Umphrey is Bertrand H. Snell 1894 Professor in American Government in the Department of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College, and President of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. December 2021 288 pages • 6 x 9 Paper • $30.00S(£22.99) 9781479812097 Cloth • $89.00X(£71.00) 9781479812080

Law

TRUTH AND EVIDENCE

NOMOS LXIV

Edited by MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG and PHILIP KITCHER

Explores the challenges of governing in a post-truth world

In Truth and Evidence, the latest installment in the NOMOS series, Melissa Schwartzberg and Philip Kitcher bring together a distinguished group of interdisciplinary scholars in political science, law, and philosophy to explore the most pressing questions about the role of truth, evidence, and knowledge in government. In nine timely essays, contributors examine what constitutes political knowledge, who counts as an expert, how we should weigh evidence, and what can be done to address deep disinformation. Essential reading for our fraught political moment, Truth and Evidence considers the importance of truth in the face of widespread efforts to turn it into yet another tool of political power.

Melissa Schwartzberg is Silver Professor of Politics at New York University. Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Columbia University. November 2021 240 pages • 5.5 x 8.25 Cloth • $65.00X(£52.00) 9781479811595 In NOMOS - American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy

Politics

September 2021 272 pages • 6 x 9 7 black & white illustrations Cloth • $55.00S(£44.00) 9781479811014

Law

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY LAW AND THE AMERICAN LABOR MARKET

JON C. DUBIN

How social security disability law is out of touch with the contemporary American labor market

In this book, Jon C. Dubin challenges the contemporary policies for determining disability benefits and work assessment. He posits the fundamental questions: where are the jobs for persons with significant medical and vocational challenges? Dubin demystifies the system, showing us its complex inner mechanisms and flaws, its history and evolution, and how changes in the labor market have rendered some agency processes obsolete. Dubin lays out how those who advocate eviscerating program coverage and needed life support benefits in the guise of modernizing these procedures would reduce the capacity for the Social Security Administration to function properly and serve its intended beneficiaries, and argues that the disability system should instead be “mended, not ended.”

Jon C. Dubin is Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of Law, and Associate Dean for Clinical Education at Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey.

January 2022 256 pages • 6 x 9 4 black & white illustrations Cloth • $45.00S(£36.00) 9781479800346

Law

TAX AND TIME

On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination ANTHONY C. INFANTI

How tax law perpetuates injustice but might instead be used as a powerful force for creating a more just and equitable society

Tax and Time sheds light on two of the most misunderstood universal human experiences: time and taxes. Anthony C. Infanti asserts that time in tax law is the product of pure imagination and calls into question the world beyond time that we have created for ourselves. Written with clarity and powerful insight, Tax and Time demonstrates how the tax laws have been used to imaginatively manipulate time in ways that perpetuate economic and social injustice. Infanti calls for a systematic reexamination and reworking of the relationship between time and tax law, asserting that the power of the legal imagination to manipulate time in tax law can both correct past injustices and help us to envision—and actually work toward—a better and more just society.

Anthony C. Infanti is the Christopher C. Walthour, Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and author of Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.