States, Citizens, and Questions of Significance Tenth Round Table

The Tenth Round Table on Law and Semiotics was the first Round Table «on the Road» in Amherst and it celebrates a decade of semiotic scholarship on law. This volume is a report from that gathering and reflects its general focus as well as the specific theme - the context of cultures, identity, immigration and their literatures. A number of other crosscurrents - such as the meaning of semiotics and the reach of our endeavor, the uses of history and analytic techniques, and creative play with love and humor - will be evident. Perhaps the ongoing interest in what semiotics is will turn out to be the characteristic feature of this volume. Newcomers want to know what they are getting into and veterans are generally happy with new blood. These orientations are all evident. The result, evident in the diversity of papers, is another thematic current - how far one can stray and still be part of the community.

The Editors: John Brigham is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His books include The Constitution of Interests (1996), Property and the Politics of Entitlement (1990), The Cult of the Court (1987), Civil Liberties and American Democracy (1984), Constitutional Language (1978), Making Public Policy (1977). He is a former Chair of the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association and Trustee of the Law and Society Association and Fellow of the International Institute for the Sociology of Law.
Roberta Kevelson was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emerita, the most widely published author of Charles S. Peirce's semiotics and Executive Director of the Center for Semiotic Research in Law, Government und Economics. Professor Kevelson died in 1998.