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  3. Judicial Rhapsodies: Rhetoric and Fundamental Rights in the Supreme Court

Judicial Rhapsodies: Rhetoric and Fundamental Rights in the Supreme Court

Doug Coulson
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  • Overview

  • Contents

All judges legitimize their decisions in writing, but US Supreme Court justices depend on public acceptance to a unique degree. Previous studies of judicial opinions have explored rhetorical strategies that produce legitimacy, but none have examined the laudatory, even operatic, forms of writing Supreme Court justices have used to justify fundamental rights decisions. Doug Coulson demonstrates that such “judicial rhapsodies” are not an aberration but a central feature of judicial discourse.

First examining the classical origins of divisions between law and rhetoric, Coulson tracks what he calls an epideictic register—highly affective forms of expression that utilize hyperbole, amplification, and vocabularies of praise—through a surprising number of landmark Supreme Court opinions. Judicial Rhapsodies recovers and revalues these instances as significant to establishing and maintaining shared perspectives that form the basis for common experience and cooperation.

Doug Coulson is an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches in the areas of legal rhetoric, argument, and the history of rhetoric. Before entering academia, he practiced business and commercial litigation for nearly a decade. He is the author of Race, Nation, and Refuge: The Rhetoric of Race in Asian American Citizenship Cases (SUNY), and his articles on legal rhetoric and writing have appeared in many journals, including Rhetorica, the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities.

  • Cover
  • Half Title
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Rhapsodic Jurisprudence
  • 1. Judicial and Epideictic Rhetoric: A False Division
  • 2. Freedom of Speech, Paramologia, and the Flag
  • 3. Keeping Government Out of Religion and Vice Versa
  • 4. Storms, Shadows, and Privacy
  • Conclusion: Truth Has No Bones
  • Notes
  • Glossary of Figures
  • Bibliography
  • Table of Cases
  • Index
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Published: 2023
Publisher: Amherst College Press
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license
ISBN(s)
  • 978-1-943208-46-3 (paper)
  • 978-1-943208-47-0 (open access)
Subject
  • LAW / Judicial Power
  • LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Rhetoric
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© 2023 Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International license
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