Lex Populi: The Jurisprudence of Popular Culture

This is a book about jurisprudence-or legal philosophy. The legal philosophical texts under consideration are-to say the least-unorthodox. Tolkien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Legally Blonde, and others are referenced as instances of what the author calls lex populi- pop law . Here, however, issues of legal philosophy are heavily coded, for few of these pop cultural texts announce themselves as expressly legal. Lex Populi reads these texts jurisprudentially , with an eye to their hidden legal philosophical meanings, enabling connections such as: Tolkien’s Ring as Kelsen’s grundnorm; vampire slaying as legal language’s semiosis; and Hogwarts as substantively unjust. Lex Populi attempts not only a jurisprudential reading of popular culture, but also a popular rereading of jurisprudence, removing it from the legal experts in order to restore it to the public at large: a lex populi by and for the people.