¹ P. Allott, The Health of Nations: Society And Law beyond the State 36 (2002).Google Scholar

² See, e.g., for the “law in context” approach of the “Frankfurter Schule der Privatrechtstheorie” (“Frankfurt School of Private Law Theory”) inspired by Rudolf Wiethölter who, in turn, inspired the contributions to Cristian Joerges & Gunther Teubner (eds., 2003) Rechtsverfassungsrecht. Recht-Fertigung zwischen Privatrechtsdogmatik und Gesellschaftstheorie. As books are always placed next to other books, this review of Fiona Cownie's monograph is also a reflection on Peer Zumbansen, Das soziale Gedächtnis des Rechts, oder: Juristische Dogmatik als Standeskunst in Wietholter, 151 – 179.Google Scholar

³ For a rich collection of legal biographies, see Juristen. Ein biographisches Lexikon. Von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (M. Stolleis ed., 2nd ed., 2001). However, sometimes special efforts have to be made to overcome historiographic reluctance, see M. Stolleis, Reluctance to glance in the mirror: The Changing Face of German Jurisprudence after 1933 and post-1945, in Darker Legacies of Law in Europe. The Shadow of National Socialism and Fascism over Europe and its Legal Traditions 1 (C. Joerges & N. S. Ghaleigh eds., 2003). An example for a closer look on one of the most ambiguos legal-academic biographies, picked from the ever-growing piles of literature on Carl Schmitt, is B. Rüthers, Die Tagebücher Carl Schmitts – ein frühes Selbstporträt?, Juristenzeitung 445, 448 (2004).Google Scholar

⁴ An interesting strand of the ‘critical’ movement are, not only in this regard, the ‘New Approaches to International Law’ (NAIL), see D. Kennedy, A New Stream of International Legal Scholarship, 7 Wis. Int'l L. J. 1 (1988), and D. Kennedy & C. Tennant, New Approaches to International Law: A Bibliography, 35 Harv. Int'l L. J. 417 (1994). Although NAIL has been completed at a conference at Harvard Law School in 1997, the process of a critical examination of international law starting from its protagonists goes on, see D. Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (2004). The book explores, rooted in David Kennedy's own experiences in numerous humanitarian efforts as well as in legal academia, the satisfactions of international humanitarian engagement – but also the disappointments of idealism. Kennedy takes his readers from Harvard Law School to the jails of Uruguay, from the corridors of the United Nations to the founding of an NGO dedicated to the liberation of East Timor in a Lissabon kindergarten, from opposing the war in Vietnam to discussing international law aboard an U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.Google Scholar

⁵ See P. Zumbansen, Innen- und Außenansichten des Rechts in der Globalisierung, Habilitationsvortrag an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt, 9 June 2004 (Ms. 2004, on file with the author): “Jedenfalls fehlen auch in einem stringent wirkenden Lebenslauf regelmäßig die Fussnoten und Verweise auf die soziale Lebenswelt, in deren Fürsorge, Ironisierung und Ermahnung die einen oder anderen Ereignisse überhaupt zu Ereignissen werden konnten. Es fehlen auch die Verweise auf die wunderbaren Zufälle und Glücksfälle, die in professioneller Hinsicht Pfadabhängigkeiten zu begründen halfen und damit auch Mut zur Innovation gaben, die aber auch dabei halfen, die Relativität des täglichen Raschelns mit Papieren zu erkennen.”Google Scholar

⁶ P. Bourdieu, Homo Academicus (1984).Google Scholar

⁷ See, inter alia, D. Kennedy, International Legal Education, 26 Harvard Int'l L.J. 361 (1985).Google Scholar

⁸ It should be noted that Cownie, despite her rather positive assessment of the “intellectual drift” occuring in British legal academia, does not even mention the role of the academic lawyer as public intellectual which has a long tradition in many legal cultures. See, e.g., R. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, 359 – 386 (2001). For a witty contribution to the well-worn debate on whether there is something as a “British Intellectual” at all, see S. Collini, 'Every Fruit-juice Drinker, Nudist, Sandal-wearer …': Intellectuals as Other People, in The Public Intellectual 203, 214 (H. Small ed., 2002).Google Scholar

⁹ “Yes, I am proud. If you have been a historian, and then you go into law, there's a great difference in the way you're received. Anyone can do history, but law gets respect – often misplaced, I'm sure, but it does get respect …” (principal lecturer, experienced, female, new university) (99).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See D. kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism, at XVI (2004); see, also, J. Zeh, Wir trauen uns nicht: Viele Schriftsteller halten Politik für Expertenkram – und vor allem für Privatsache, 11 Die Zeit 53 (2004) “Nach meiner politischen Einstellung befragt, würde ich antworten, dass ich meinen Kinderglauben an die Gerechtigkeit noch nicht verloren habe. Ich würde anführen, dass ich meine juristischen Kenntnisse bislang ausschliesslich darauf verwende, ehrenamtlich gegen demokratischen Kolonialismus auf dem Balkan, gegen ugandische Kriegsverbrecher und gegen die Telekom zu kämpfen.”Google Scholar

¹¹ “I suppose what I really like is the individual freedom. It's a job where you can, to a large extent, do what you want, work on questions that interest you. You can spend a lot of time reading books – I like reading books, and at times, certainly not all the time, but at times it can just seem like one of the best jobs in the world, because you can be sitting in the garden in the summer reading what I think are very interesting books, and being paid for it – it's a pretty good deal. It's not always like that, but that's what's really good.” (lecturer, early career, male, old university) (104).Google Scholar

¹² The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is an exercise conducted nationally to assess the quality of UK research and to inform the selective distribution of public funds for research by the four UK higher education funding bodies, see www.rae.ac.uk (last visited on 12 July 2004).Google Scholar

¹³ The Quality Assessment Exercise (QAE), an assessment of the quality of teaching, takes place every four years and every department at every university in the UK is subjected to it.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See P. Zumbansen, Das soziale Gedächtnis des Rechts, oder: Juristische Dogmatik als Standeskunst, in Rechtsverfassungsrecht. Recht-Fertigung zwischen Privatrechtsdogmatik und Gesellschaftstheorie, 151, 173 (C. Joerges & G. Teubner eds., 2003).Google Scholar

¹⁵ See L. Siedentop, Democracy in Europe (2001). For a critical assessment of law's function in the process of European integration, see U. Haltern, Der Europarechtliche Begriff des Politischen. Habilitationsschrift 252 (2003).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See P. Zumbansen, supra note 14, at 174, for an account of the everyday-life of legal academia in a major German university: “In Deutschland erreicht der Professor die Studenten nur per Mikrophon, und die Studenten erreichen den Professor gar nicht, schon gar nicht in seinem Büro. Macht nichts, weil sie ihn oft nicht einmal dem Namen nach kennen. Dass die Veranstaltungen überfüllt sind, macht auch nichts, weil weder die Studenten noch der Professor die riesigen Veranstaltungen mögen und sie deshalb eher in einer Mischung aus Resignation und Zynismus ertragen.”Google Scholar

¹⁷ Id. at 178.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Fiona Cownie, Legal Academics: Culture and Identities 3 (2004).Google Scholar