Caleb Scoville

Title: The study of culture, law, and crisis Author: Matthew Clair, Stanford University Date: July 2025 Abstract: This paper reviews cultural sociological approaches to the study of law and how they may be applied to future research on law-related social crises. As the world faces myriad social crises, such as rising authoritarianism and police violence, the study of culture and the law has become an even more urgent intellectual and practical endeavor. Over the last decade, five concepts have dominated the cultural study of law: rules, norms, frames, cultural capital, and legal consciousness. While past research has provided generative insight, future research would benefit from more precise considerations of rules and norms in this unsettled moment. Moreover, future research could leverage the five cultural concepts to sharpen understandings of inequality and social control in understudied legal organizations, along understudied axes of social stratification, and with respect to the infusion of new technologies into the legal system. Acknowledgments: Thank you to Asad L. Asad, Sarah Brayne, and Barbara Kiviat for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Law is central to today’s social crises—from democratic backsliding to immigrant exclusion. This paper shows how cultural sociology offers rigorous explanations of, and insights into how to tackle, law-related crises. Hope it’s useful to law and society scholars and others

osf.io/preprints/so...

Rutgers Expert on Antifa Tries to Flee to Spain After Death Threats

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/n...

Perhaps the term “advocacy” is too specific or too high a bar. I am just interested in discourse from pro/anti choice orgs.

All good. I'm most interested in long-running orgs to understand long term discursive patterns, not as much in the politics of today, although newer ones are interesting too.

If one were to do an analysis of statements by the most influential organizations working on abortion (both pro-choice and pro-life organizations), what would they be? I have a working list, but hoping to crowdsource orgs I'm missing.

If one were to do an analysis of statements by the most influential organizations on immigration policy/politics on both sides of the aisle (including anti-immigration and pro-immigration positions), what would they be? I have a working list but hoping to crowdsource orgs I'm missing.

A fireball lit up the sky across the Los Angeles area on Thursday night after an explosion at a Chevron refinery in El Segundo, alarming nearby residents who said it felt like an earthquake. The cause of the explosion was not clear. No injuries were reported. nyti.ms/42pPCaW

The New England upper class, on the other hand, is educated professionals who inherited some monopoly.

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

maybe turning over a major political party to reality tv spectacle wasn't a good idea?

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Geo by Caleb Scoville, Razvan Amironesei, Lily Xu, Melissa Chapman, Nicholas R. Record & Carl Boettiger entitled: 'From maps to models: Participation and contestability in the dynamic management of natural resources' with an orange banner at the top.

🌍New in Geo!🌍

'From maps to models: Participation and contestability in the dynamic management of natural resources' by @calebscoville.bsky.social et al.

This paper compares how participation is conceived in static vs dynamic ocean management.

doi.org/10.1002/geo2... #geosky

Very happy to be part of this new paper brilliantly led by @calebscoville.bsky.social on new opportunities for stakeholder participation with dynamic management compared to static management of natural resources! 🌳🌏🙋

fossil fuels are expensive, dirty, and literally destroying the life support systems of the planet. a political opposition that doesn’t run with this deserves to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Estimates by Lazard

First time this guy has ever made me laugh

sign of the times: I could tell the genx men in the cafe were talking about the new Jeff Tweedy (triple) album without an explicit mention of his name.

Age yourself with a film you saw in a cinema as a kid

@ahmccumber.bsky.social

Trump seems to back off Portland military plan: 'Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?' President Trump had said he will send troops to Portland to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he said were "under attack."

Sometimes I wonder if I’m wasting my time doing media analysis and then I see stuff like this and…

“"I spoke to the governor, she was very nice," Trump said. "But I said, 'Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?“

www.kgw.com/article/news...

the absolute concentration of power in a single institution controlled by a single individual. what could go wrong?

it’s honestly kind of funny that they’re called the Republican Party because this is the kind of stuff classical republicans were super worried about, for good reason.

I guess he was being conservative.

Let me first start by saying that during the first Trump term, I was part of a fairly small group of people on the left who were very skeptical of a lot of the warnings about authoritarianism, fascism, autocracy and strongman politics. I think I had a lot of evidence on my side. I wasn’t just being ornery. There were many ways in which, compared to, say, George W. Bush — if we’re thinking about political repression or transforming institutions — Trump was quite a piddling actor. I know the second Red Scare, I know the labor wars in this country, I know about the battle over abolition. It seemed like Trump was small potatoes. Not just because of the ways he was constrained. It also seemed like: What was the revolution that Trumpism was counteracting? You had nothing like the New Deal, or what we’ve just been describing. So I was skeptical. What shook me out of this was the assault on government workers and the firings. That was the first thing. For me, employment sanctions are always the canary in the coal mine. There’s a long history of it. It’s really the way a lot of American political repression has happened. W.E.B. Du Bois, in “Black Reconstruction in America,” says it’s employment sanctions that is the driving engine during this very violent moment against Black people.

Then, all of a sudden, you see these mass firings happening. There’s all kinds of reasons to worry about that if you care about climate change. And a lot of people were talking about all those things, but I was thinking about it instantaneously as McCarthyism. The other thing was, of course, the capitulation of law firms and universities. And the record of elites and institutions, unfortunately, is not so great. So seeing those institutions start capitulating, often to financial threats. Not: We’re going to put you in jail. But: We’re going to take away your funding. Americans have a weird attitude toward money. On the one hand, it’s the most important thing in America. And on the other hand, we have this very moralistic idea: Well, if it’s just money, stand up to the [expletive]! And it’s like: Could we put these two worlds together? [Laughs.] The economy is a medium of political coercion in this country. It always has been. Trump didn’t invent that.

very interesting reflections from Corey Robin here on why and when he changed his mind on the threat that Trump poses to democracy in America.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...

Maybe not, but useful content for Lisa Cook’s lawyers

Trump is launching an authoritarian takeover of Portland hoping to provoke conflict in my hometown. I urge Oregonians to reject Trump’s attempt to incite violence in what we know is a vibrant and peaceful city. I will do everything in my power to protect the people in our state.

solidarity

Being deployed to Portland will radicalize so many American servicepeople. They will, as I did during my seven years there, develop expectations about brunch, coffee, and beer that cannot be realistically met anywhere else in this country.

I owe Baudrillard so many apologies

Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media...

Comment period ends on Monday for a proposed rule change that would terminate student visas after 4 years. It also puts limits on exchange visitors and reps of foreign media, and shortens the length of time at the end of the visa from 60 days to 30 days.

www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

@cboettig.bsky.social @lilyxu.bsky.social @milliechapman.bsky.social @geoopenaccess.bsky.social