Geoffrey D. Klinger

Bio: Geoffrey D. Klinger is an academic researcher from University of Iowa. The author has contributed to research in topics: Rhetoric & Comparative law. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 16 citations.

Law as "Communicative Praxis": Toward a Rhetorical Jurisprudence.

Abstract: "It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen." Oliver Wendell Holmes The Poet at the Breakfast Table In the recent film Mindwalk, the center of action is focused on the intellectual exchange of a poet, a scientist, and a politician. The conversation is unplanned, and often awkward, for the three characters in this film do not share the same intellectual vocabulary, but there is an unmistakable desire to both begin and continue the conversation. The conversation seems aimed toward translating a concern for the human condition into appropriate political praxis. The important theoretical moment for the film is the point at which the conversation begins. This is also the important theoretical moment for this essay. We seek to reconfigure an intellectual relation in the hope of reinvigorating a critical conversation. A debate similar to the one in Mindwalk has continued for hundreds of years in jurisprudence, or the "philosophy of law."(1) Specifically, the dialectical relation of scientist/poet has been represented by analytic philosophy/rhetorical theory. Or, in other words, philosophy and rhetoric have served as competing intellectual foundations since the time the law was first theorized. So let us begin with our conclusion: both the theory and practice of jurisprudence have changed markedly over their lengthy history. In fact, contemporary jurisprudence is such that it bears almost no intellectual relationship to the concept articulated at its origins. Perhaps this is most obvious when we realize, historically, that the theory of law and the theory of rhetoric had an almost synchronous relation. Today, however, it is a relation that is substantially ignored, and overtly denied. Gerald Wetlaufer reminds of this intellectual shift in the theory of law which, he argues, culminates in a "deeply ironic resistance to rhetoric" (1555). The difference we posit becomes clearest when one compares origins to end points. Jurisprudence was originally an intellectually holistic concept. It boldly crossed the gap from theoria to praxis and back again. For Aristotle, who represents the pragmatic synthesis of rhetoric and philosophy, conceptions of the law were informed by a confluence of dialectic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, even poetics. Today, however, jurisprudence has been appropriated by a discrete and insular theory of law, articulated largely by the analytic/positivist/formalist tradition. As a result, contemporary jurisprudence becomes an intellectually truncated philosophy of law; indeed, it more or less operates as the "science" of law.(2) Questions of ethics and normativity, of politics and rhetoric, once the heart of the classical model of jurisprudence, are now quickly dismissed by the analytic tradition. Even Black's Law Dictionary, the central text for legal concepts and terms, demonstrates the near complete hegemony of the analytic tradition in contemporary jurisprudence. It purports to define "jurisprudence" as: The philosophy of law, or the science which treats the principles of positive law and legal relations. In the proper sense of the word, 'jurisprudence' is the science of law, namely, that science which has for its function to ascertain the principles on which legal rules are based, so as not only to classify those rules in the proper order, and show the relation in which they stand to one another, but also to settle the manner in which new or doubtful cases should be brought under the appropriate rules. Jurisprudence is more a formal than a material science. It has no direct concern with questions of moral or political policy, for they fall under the province of ethics and legislation . . . . (emphasis added) ("Jurisprudence" 767) The end result of the aforementioned hegemony of the analytic tradition in the theory of law is an often subtle, but unmistakable transformation in the way the law is both theorized and practiced. James Boyd White is one scholar who understands and laments this transformation. …

The Rhetoric of Roe v. Wade: When the (Male) Doctor Knows Best

Abstract: An examination of the rhetoric of the Court's majority opinion in Roe v. Wade shows that, in contrast to the public meaning of Roe's ruling as a second wave feminist victory, Roe's rhetoric denied women agency and undermined their judgments and their voices. This study demonstrates how the community of meaning endorsed through Roe's rhetoric—specifically the rhetorical constructs of the “doctor knows best” and the “woman-as-patient”—advanced traditional ideas about women and provided a host of warrants for future judges and legislatures to limit women's reproductive rights. Ultimately, this study informs our understandings of the contemporary abortion rights struggle, the role of the Supreme Court as a rhetorical institution, and the rhetorical history of gender and sex politics in the United States.

Character, the Constitution, and the Ideological Embodiment of "Civil Rights" in the 1967 Nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court

Abstract: The U.S. Constitution is, among various confluent motives, a characterological document that motivates the image‐based politics characteristic of contemporary confirmation controversies. This essay suggests that this motive results in the embodiment of ideology in the characters who dominate American public life. An illustrative example is the 1967 confirmation debate regarding the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. In this debate, Marshall embodied opposing conceptions of “civil rights” for both opponents and supporters of his nomination. Ultimately, I maintain that such ideological embodiment may democratize and problematize ideological debate by allowing for more polysemous readings of public discourse.

Challenging constitutional authority: African American responses to Scott v. Sandford

Abstract: Through an analysis of black abolitionist responses to Scott v. Sandford, this essay demonstrates the importance of extra‐legal texts in contextualizing and challenging judicial authority. By analyzing the public responses of black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, William C. Nell, Robert Purvis, and Charles Lenox Remond, this essay concludes that(1) legal decisions cannot be properly understood apart from the subsequent public discourse they inspire,(2) the responses to Dred Scott demonstrate how legally excluded classes may persuasively challenge constitutional authority and assert their rights, and(3) the responses to Dred Scotthave profound implications in the formation of American identity.

United States v. Virginia: A Rhetorical Battle between Progress and Preservation

Abstract: This paper examines the rhetoric of the Court's opinions in United States v. Virginia. The majority opinion is shaped by a framework of progress that acts as a conservative warrant for a politically liberal conceptualization of women. A competing framework of preservation shapes the dissent and reasserts the legitimacy of the traditional sameness/difference approach to gender equality. This analysis demonstrates that different methods of Constitutional interpretation allow for different stories of women to be told.