Lex Populi Av William P. Macneil

<p>This is a book about jurisprudence¿or legal philosophy. The legal philosophical texts under consideration are¿to say the least¿unorthodox. Tolkien, <I>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</I>, <I>Harry Potter</I>, <I>Legally Blonde</I>, and others are referenced as instances of what the author calls <I>lex populi</I>¿"pop law". Here, however, issues of legal philosophy are heavily coded, for few of these pop cultural texts announce themselves as expressly legal. <I>Lex Populi</I> reads these texts "jurisprudentially", with an eye to their hidden legal philosophical meanings, enabling connections such as: Tolkien''s Ring as Kelsen''s <I>grundnorm</I>; vampire slaying as legal language''s semiosis; and Hogwarts as substantively unjust. <I>Lex Populi</I> attempts not only a jurisprudential reading of popular culture, but also a popular rereading of jurisprudence, removing it from the legal experts in order to restore it to the public at large: a <I>lex populi</I> by and for the people.</p>