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ShenelEkiciFirstEssay 3 - 21 Feb 2025 - Main.ShenelEkici
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | -- By Shenel Ekici | |
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< | Metamorphosis
When my father asked why I wouldn’t go to law school, I used to say, “You raised me right.” No one in my family trusted the State. My father grew up in rural Turkey, born to a former indentured servant and a mine worker, both functionally illiterate. My aunt, a political prisoner, was smuggled into Germany while heavily pregnant. My parents refused to marry, rejecting marriage as a state tool to offload responsibility onto the nuclear family. We listened to Fox News in the car to understand how “they” thought. | >
> | The Metamorphosis
When my father asked why I wouldn’t go to law school, I used to say, “You raised me right.” No one in my family trusted the State. My father grew up in rural Turkey, born to an illiterate former indentured servant and a mine worker. My aunt, a political prisoner, was smuggled into Germany while heavily pregnant. My parents rejected marriage as a state tool to offload responsibility onto the nuclear family. We listened to Fox News in the car to understand how “they” thought. | | | | |
<
< | At Barnard, my disdain for institutions flourished through a steady diet of post-postmodern literary theory and gender studies. My Modernism professor used to say, “If you want to see the canon, cross the street and look at the names on Butler.” Law school, though a logical tool for getting closer to the work I wanted, felt fundamentally incompatible with my academic foundation. Now, I was the one in Butler, churning out mechanically correct yet soulless writing, bowing to my professors’ favored policy considerations. It worked—too well. One December night, a cockroach skittered across my desk. I didn’t leave until I finished my contracts practice exam. Was there another way, or was I doomed to be a cockroach forever? | >
> | At Barnard, my disdain for institutions flourished through a steady diet of postmodern literary theory and gender studies. A professor used to say, “If you want to see the canon, cross the street and look at the names on Butler.” Law school, though a logical tool for accomplishing the work I wanted, felt incompatible. Now, I was the one in Butler, churning out mechanically correct writing, bowing to my professors’ favored policy considerations. It worked—too well. One December night, a cockroach skittered across my desk. I didn’t even leave until I finished my contracts practice exam. Was I doomed to be a cockroach too? | | |
Transcendental Nonsense | |
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< | I first encountered Transcendental Nonsense in Civil Procedure, mentally filing it under “interesting but not a priority”—it wouldn’t be tested. Now, with an academically sanctioned reason to revisit it, I feel compelled to examine it against my prior scholarship. | >
> | I first encountered Transcendental Nonsense in Civil Procedure, mentally filing it under “interesting but not a priority”—it wouldn’t be tested. Now, I have an academically sanctioned reason to revisit it. | | | | |
<
< | Cohen captured what I had felt in law school: the paper-thinness of arguments grounded in principle alone, the “divorce of legal reasoning from questions of social fact and ethical value.” Felix S. Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809, 814 (1935). I had always conceived of law in Hobbesian terms, commanding obedience not for its justice or rationality, but due to the power behind it. Id. at 837. The commingling of this with Coke’s “perfection of reason” was unsurprising, given the hubris of the profession, but I at least assumed we were all in on the joke. Id. | >
> | Cohen captured what I felt in law school: the paper-thinness of arguments grounded in principle alone, the “divorce of legal reasoning from questions of social fact and ethical value.” Felix S. Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809, 814 (1935). I had always conceived of law in Hobbesian terms, commanding obedience not for its justice or rationality, but because of power. Id. at 837. The commingling of this with Coke’s “perfection of reason” was unsurprising, given the hubris of the profession, but until I got to CLS I had assumed we were all in on the joke. Id. | | | | |
<
< | Cohen urges the incorporation of disciplines like psychology, economics, and political science to ground legal decision-making in human behavior, allowing ethics to “come out of hiding.” Id. at 847. Yet my academic training warned that these disciplines suffered from the same affliction Cohen sought to remedy. His striking analysis of trade names critiques their “thingification” for its lack of economic rationale. Id. at 815. But by focusing on economic impact, Cohen asks the wrong questions. Id. at 817. In a post-postmodern age swinging back into fascism, we must interrogate whether the words courts implicitly grant legal protection mean what we say they mean. | >
> | Cohen urges an interdisciplinary approach to ground legal decision-making in human behavior, allowing ethics to “come out of hiding.” Id. at 847. Yet my academic training warned that other disciplines suffered from the same affliction. For example, his striking analysis of trade names critiques their “thingification” for its lack of economic rationale. Id. at 815. But by focusing on economic impact, Cohen asks the wrong questions. Id. at 817. In a post-postmodern age swinging back into fascism, we must interrogate whether the words courts implicitly grant legal protection mean what we say they mean. | | |
Strategic Misreading
From a deconstructionist perspective, “[l]anguage is structured as an endless deferral of meaning, and any search for an essential, absolutely stable meaning must therefore be considered metaphysical,” just like a transcendental approach to law. Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985). Resorting to rhetorical hierarchy—the binary system of opposition—can undermine the very ethical concerns one might seek to remedy. See generally, Hélène Cixous, Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays, in The Newly Born Woman 63 (Hélène Cixous & Catherine Clément eds., Betsy Wing trans., 1986). | |
<
< | Marginalized groups, historically denied custodianship of truth, can weaponize this instability by constructing “strategic misreadings,” drawing meaning from texts in ways that reflect their social realities. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Displacement and the Discourse of Woman, in Displacement: Derrida and After 169 (Mark Krupnick ed., 1983). Yet another danger emerges: patriarchy “[d]etermines not only the game’s rules but…[its] parameters, so that those placed in the margin….are made to believe that this marginalization is, in fact, a participation in the game.” Jeanette McVicker? , Barthelme’s The Dead Father: Girls Talk, 17 Lit. Interpretation Theory 289 (2006). | >
> | Marginalized groups, historically denied custodianship of truth, can weaponize this instability by constructing “strategic misreadings,” in ways that reflect their social realities. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Displacement and the Discourse of Woman, in Displacement: Derrida and After 169 (Mark Krupnick ed., 1983). Yet another danger emerges: patriarchy “[d]etermines not only the game’s rules but…[its] parameters, so that those placed in the margin….are made to believe that this marginalization is, in fact, a participation in the game.” Jeanette McVicker? , Barthelme’s The Dead Father: Girls Talk, 17 Lit. Interpretation Theory 289 (2006). | | |
The Game | |
<
< | The question, then, is how to play the game—how to approach law functionally without falling into rhetorical traps—in a world where words have been entirely divorced from meaning. See Baudrillard, Simulation and Simulacra. “A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings…the language serves him.” Timothy Snyder, What Does It Mean That Donald Trump Is a Fascist?, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist. | >
> | The question, then, is how to play the game—how to approach law functionally without falling into rhetorical traps—in a world where words have been entirely divorced from meaning. “A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings…the language serves him.” Timothy Snyder, What Does It Mean That Donald Trump Is a Fascist?, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist. See also Baudrillard, Simulation and Simulacra. | | | | |
<
< | Problematic as The Father was, at least he was predictable: “Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures…Isn’t storytelling always a way of searching for one’s origin, speaking one’s conflicts with the Law?” Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text (Richard Miller trans., Hill & Wang 1975). In contrast, “A liberal has to tell a hundred stories, or a thousand...A fascist just has to be a storyteller.” Snyder, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024). Fascism is unpredictable not because we ignore it, but because it monopolizes language. Id. It may not be as sharp a tool as Cohen assumes. | >
> | Problematic as The Father was, at least he was predictable: “Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures…Isn’t storytelling always a way of searching for one’s origin, speaking one’s conflicts with the Law?” Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text (Richard Miller trans., Hill & Wang 1975). In contrast, “A liberal has to tell a hundred stories, or a thousand...A fascist just has to be a storyteller.” Snyder, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024). Fascism is unpredictable not just because we ignore it, but because it monopolizes language. Id. It may not be as sharp a tool as Cohen assumes. | | | | |
<
< | Neither are supposedly objective disciplines like economics or political science. The disconnect between reported economic data and public perception in the 2024 election was initially dismissed as misinformation and irrationality. Yet, as we now know, traditional metrics failed to capture economic hardships that fueled frustration with Democrats proclaiming a strong economy. Eugene Ludwig, Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong., Politico (Feb. 11, 2025), https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464. | >
> | Neither are supposedly objective disciplines, like economics or political science. The disconnect between reported economic data and public perception in the 2024 election was initially dismissed as misinformation or irrationality. Yet traditional metrics failed to capture the economic hardships that fueled frustration with Democrats insistent on the strength of our economy. Eugene Ludwig, Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong., Politico (Feb. 11, 2025), https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464. | | | | |
<
< | Cohen’s perspective is more necessary than ever, yet more difficult to apply. Whether we can beat them at their own game remains an open question—but not an impossible one. | >
> | Cohen’s perspective remains necessary, though more difficult to apply. Whether we can beat them at their own game remains an open question. | | |
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ShenelEkiciFirstEssay 2 - 20 Feb 2025 - Main.ShenelEkici
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< | | | | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | |
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< | Logomachy | >
> | Logomachy: A Functional Approach under Fascism | | | -- By Shenel Ekici | |
<
< | Section I | >
> | Metamorphosis
When my father asked why I wouldn’t go to law school, I used to say, “You raised me right.” No one in my family trusted the State. My father grew up in rural Turkey, born to a former indentured servant and a mine worker, both functionally illiterate. My aunt, a political prisoner, was smuggled into Germany while heavily pregnant. My parents refused to marry, rejecting marriage as a state tool to offload responsibility onto the nuclear family. We listened to Fox News in the car to understand how “they” thought.
At Barnard, my disdain for institutions flourished through a steady diet of post-postmodern literary theory and gender studies. My Modernism professor used to say, “If you want to see the canon, cross the street and look at the names on Butler.” Law school, though a logical tool for getting closer to the work I wanted, felt fundamentally incompatible with my academic foundation. Now, I was the one in Butler, churning out mechanically correct yet soulless writing, bowing to my professors’ favored policy considerations. It worked—too well. One December night, a cockroach skittered across my desk. I didn’t leave until I finished my contracts practice exam. Was there another way, or was I doomed to be a cockroach forever?
Transcendental Nonsense | | | | |
<
< | Subsection A | >
> | I first encountered Transcendental Nonsense in Civil Procedure, mentally filing it under “interesting but not a priority”—it wouldn’t be tested. Now, with an academically sanctioned reason to revisit it, I feel compelled to examine it against my prior scholarship. | | | | |
>
> | Cohen captured what I had felt in law school: the paper-thinness of arguments grounded in principle alone, the “divorce of legal reasoning from questions of social fact and ethical value.” Felix S. Cohen, Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809, 814 (1935). I had always conceived of law in Hobbesian terms, commanding obedience not for its justice or rationality, but due to the power behind it. Id. at 837. The commingling of this with Coke’s “perfection of reason” was unsurprising, given the hubris of the profession, but I at least assumed we were all in on the joke. Id. | | | | |
<
< | Subsub 1 | >
> | Cohen urges the incorporation of disciplines like psychology, economics, and political science to ground legal decision-making in human behavior, allowing ethics to “come out of hiding.” Id. at 847. Yet my academic training warned that these disciplines suffered from the same affliction Cohen sought to remedy. His striking analysis of trade names critiques their “thingification” for its lack of economic rationale. Id. at 815. But by focusing on economic impact, Cohen asks the wrong questions. Id. at 817. In a post-postmodern age swinging back into fascism, we must interrogate whether the words courts implicitly grant legal protection mean what we say they mean. | | | | |
<
< | Subsection B | | | | |
>
> | Strategic Misreading | | | | |
<
< | Subsub 1 | >
> | From a deconstructionist perspective, “[l]anguage is structured as an endless deferral of meaning, and any search for an essential, absolutely stable meaning must therefore be considered metaphysical,” just like a transcendental approach to law. Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985). Resorting to rhetorical hierarchy—the binary system of opposition—can undermine the very ethical concerns one might seek to remedy. See generally, Hélène Cixous, Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays, in The Newly Born Woman 63 (Hélène Cixous & Catherine Clément eds., Betsy Wing trans., 1986). | | | | |
>
> | Marginalized groups, historically denied custodianship of truth, can weaponize this instability by constructing “strategic misreadings,” drawing meaning from texts in ways that reflect their social realities. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Displacement and the Discourse of Woman, in Displacement: Derrida and After 169 (Mark Krupnick ed., 1983). Yet another danger emerges: patriarchy “[d]etermines not only the game’s rules but…[its] parameters, so that those placed in the margin….are made to believe that this marginalization is, in fact, a participation in the game.” Jeanette McVicker? , Barthelme’s The Dead Father: Girls Talk, 17 Lit. Interpretation Theory 289 (2006). | | | | |
<
< | Subsub 2 | | | | |
>
> | The Game | | | | |
>
> | The question, then, is how to play the game—how to approach law functionally without falling into rhetorical traps—in a world where words have been entirely divorced from meaning. See Baudrillard, Simulation and Simulacra. “A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings…the language serves him.” Timothy Snyder, What Does It Mean That Donald Trump Is a Fascist?, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist. | | | | |
<
< | Section II | >
> | Problematic as The Father was, at least he was predictable: “Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures…Isn’t storytelling always a way of searching for one’s origin, speaking one’s conflicts with the Law?” Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text (Richard Miller trans., Hill & Wang 1975). In contrast, “A liberal has to tell a hundred stories, or a thousand...A fascist just has to be a storyteller.” Snyder, New Yorker (Nov. 8, 2024). Fascism is unpredictable not because we ignore it, but because it monopolizes language. Id. It may not be as sharp a tool as Cohen assumes. | | | | |
<
< | Subsection A | >
> | Neither are supposedly objective disciplines like economics or political science. The disconnect between reported economic data and public perception in the 2024 election was initially dismissed as misinformation and irrationality. Yet, as we now know, traditional metrics failed to capture economic hardships that fueled frustration with Democrats proclaiming a strong economy. Eugene Ludwig, Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong., Politico (Feb. 11, 2025), https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464. | | | | |
<
< | Subsection B | >
> | Cohen’s perspective is more necessary than ever, yet more difficult to apply. Whether we can beat them at their own game remains an open question—but not an impossible one. | | |
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ShenelEkiciFirstEssay 1 - 19 Feb 2025 - Main.ShenelEkici
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Logomachy
-- By Shenel Ekici
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
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