Talk:Critical legal studies

Problems and other figures
There are a number of problems with this article: Firstly, it is still quite biased towards the American Academy. While this is where CLS began, it is now a global phenomenon. It is of the utmost importance that this page reflect the diversity of the movement, especially when it is once more growning in importance, with many of the most important International Journals publishing CLS (EJIL, AJIL, Human Rights Quarterly, etc, etc). Secondly, perhaps even worse, the summary of its main points almost entirely come from the 80s and early 90s, with little or nothing about the Lacanian insights, the engagements with Derrida, Agamben, Habermas, Badiou, Lefebvre, etc. I think it is really important to start to rework this article to make it more current. (Illanwall (talk) 14:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC))

I'm curious as to why Jurgen Habermas is excepted from having an influence on CLS when Mark Tushnet, one of the founders and most prominent members of CLS, in one of the most influential CLS writings, directly applies Habermas's theories on human interests. See Tushnet, Mark, An Essay on Rights, 62 Tex. L. Rev 1363, 1394 (citing to a section called "Habermas and Human Interests"). In other words, god wikipedia is worthless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.29.71 (talk) 06:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect habermas is not included precisely because he is an influence rather than a major figure. Derrida, Rawls, Badiou equally are all influences and have written critical texts on law, but don't frame themselves as CLS. However, a good suggestion might be to start an influences section, dealing with Marx (and marxism), the French 1968 authors, the split with the Frankfurt school, the shift from the early heavily Marxist 'all law is politics' to the deconstructive school of the 80s and 90s (everyone from Cornell, Douzinas, etc).(Illanwall (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC))

Having come to this page to try and understand what CLS is actually about, I was confused by the ambiguity of the closing lines in the intro. Are those two final sentences supposed to be examples? Much of the rest of the article feels heavily POV and unclear. 71.79.24.115 15:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi all. I was reviewing the Critical legal studies page for research, and found that the external link to Koskenniemi's writings on CLS and international law was outdated. I updated it to http://www.helsinki.fi/eci/Staff/JULKAISUT_ENG-11b-1.pdf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.202.34 (talk) 03:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Incorporation of Roberto Unger
The lead here emphasizes the role of Roberto Unger in the CLS movement. Numerous articles on CLS say as much, citations of which have been added for emphasis, and can only be taken seriously (see esp. Hutchinson and Smolin).

For anyone in the field of legal scholarship, this should be no surprise, and will know that Unger was tenured at the Harvard Law School in the 1970s (the height of the movement) and is now a chaired professor there. (I emphasize this point only in response to the critique of him as a Brazilian politician--we would not call JS Mill a politician while ignoring his works in philosophy.) Archivingcontext (talk) 13:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the first version you wrote (I recently began to rewrite the lead and add necessary references to the article. In the course of doing so I emphasized... and then replaced under a deceptive edit summary ) was more accurate William M. Connolley (talk) 13:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Refs
The refs are rubbish. None of the body of the article is referenced. This has been true since 2010. it needs to be fixed, or cut William M. Connolley (talk) 21:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This article needs serious work and I have not had the time to do so. I started with the lede in the hopes of at least getting something down, but have not had a chance to revist. The references cited in the lede are substantial articles in major law reviews that discuss the movement and can be drawn upon to fill out the rest of the article. But more useful would be the CLS reader, the CLS journal, as well as Unger's book on CLS. Archivingcontext (talk) 04:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Only a past movement?
Why does the article open with the claim that this was a movement of the 1970s and 1980s? I have met young people actively pursuing study and research in this field in this decade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Human fella (talk • contribs) 17:42, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Intro statement on CLS
The new additions by Derossitt are substantial and sorely needed improvements on this article. I am wondering if we can get a better intro statement of what is CLS, however. A first sentence that captures what is CLS, which would come before the rest of the intro. For example:
 * CLS was a movement in American law schools in the 1970s and 80s that challenged the consensus in contemporary legal thought and affirmed the indeterminacy of law. It led to a reform in legal education.

Thoughts? Archivingcontext (talk) 02:39, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Return of sourcing tags
With deep respect for the committed editors of this article, the removal the article tag indicating need for citations—without resolution of the issues leading to its initial placement—was unhelpful, making the article appear complete when several sections, and a few additional key sentences are wholly unsourced. For efficiency of future editing, I have indicated the sections which violate WP:VERIFY, so that when these are sourced, the article tag can be removed. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 14:27, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Repetition of citations, emphasis on Unger in lead
The article had not been wikified to include standard WP use of short citations, leading to repeat appearances, of long form of the same citations. I addressed this problem today.

As well, I found some further quality references to the movement, appearing in a bibliography of a relatively recent review, and added these to "Further reading"—ordering the "Further reading" inverse by publication date, to accentuate most recent additions—and otherwise adding citation details to these and other citations throughout.

Finally—and I have no strong academic opinion on this matter—I can see that some other editors believe that a singular emphasis on Unger in the lead is justified.

In this regard, note that my edits today were simply to make the lead less "editorial" in appearance. If Unger is indeed the singular remaining member taking leadership as indicated (i.e., if Unger is indeed the only individual who should be mentioned specifically in the lead), then a preponderance of secondary sources (i.e., by individuals other than Unger) will clearly support him being singled out.

If this is the case, and if the specific sources doing so can be clearly indicated—then the previous, more elevated language can be returned to the lead. But when clearly opinionated language appears in the lead, it needs to be plain to the reader that these opinions are source-derived, and not our own. The confusion here in part stems from the fact that Unger works are cited in the lead, for the sentences which earlier had stated how singular his contributions were continuing to be. This created the appearance of a non-third party issue about the content. Rather than do anything stronger, I chose only to soften the language appearing to promote Unger.

That's all. Hope this improves matters, as I believe. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 14:27, 22 May 2016 (UTC)