Book Review: The Empire Strikes Back: Outsiders and the Struggle Over Legal Education
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390000900411 |
| Author | Fiona Cownie |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
queery on the legal regulation of sexualities. Discussion of children’s sexualities is also
often forgotten, or reduced to debates around the ‘age of consent’. Essays by Lind
and Monk, however, redress this imbalance by exploring the regulatory techniques
used in English law which attempt to deny young people room to discuss and explore
sexuality. Their accounts of the construction of childhood ‘innocence’ and the insti-
tutionalization of heterosexuality in schools map out the ever-widening terrain of the
legal and political debate.
Law is, of course, a difficult animal with which to engage for both the academic and
the activist. As Backer points out in the final essay, one can never predict where theor-
izing might go (p. 200). Similar things can also be said about activism and litigation,
because of the contingencies involved as popular culture in any society reacts to and
absorbs what may appear to be legal change. Rauhofer’s essay with regard to the cam-
paign for same-sex marriage in Germany illustrates this by pointing out many of its
possible unintended consequences for lesbians and gay men. The difficulties involved
in acting strategically are also emphasized by Dempsey. He recounts the challenge of
developing a distinctively Scottish campaigning agenda within the broader context of
the United Kingdom. These practical examples reinforce Backer’s critique of much
queer writing. He argues that there is a danger that postmodern attempts to destabil-
ize and de-essentialize heterosexuality have fallen into the trap of modernity. The
assumption that the dominance of heterosexuality can be removed and that a new and
better world can be created is, he argues, based upon a linear view of ‘progress’ and
in many cases seeks only to replace one hegemony with another. His cautionary note
is broadly shared by the other contributors to the book, who seek to interrogate law
and legal discourses, rather than making any claims for their transformative potential.
The label ‘queer’ (alluded to in the book’s title) is of course a contested notion and
not explicitly discussed by the contributors, except by Loizidou who seeks to expand
it for her own purposes to go beyond sexual identity (p. 173) to a broader notion
encompassing ‘effective resistances’ (p. 174). There is perhaps a practical danger in this
approach: the further ‘queer’ is stretched, the more meaningless it becomes and the
less strategically useful it will be. The other contributors appear, however, to have
taken ‘queer’ to be a shorthand for non-normative sexualities and have not debated
its parameters in this book. This is indicative of the book’s overall tone – while theor-
etically informed most of its essays are pitched at a level which students on units in
law, gender and sexuality will understand and enjoy. Unfortunately Loizidou’s essay,
although interesting, is difficult for those not versed in Lacanian psychoanalytical
theory and who have not seen the film Heavenly Creatures, and perhaps fits least well
within the overall collection.
In producing such a compact book several of the contributors have not really had
sufficient space to develop their argument, leaving the reader wanting to know more
in terms of both analysis and background detail. Nevertheless the editors are to be
congratulated for bringing together this exciting collection which has helped push out
the boundaries of lesbian, gay and transgender legal scholarship. One thing remains
abundantly clear – there is still plenty of scope to continue theorizing this area.
PAUL SKIDMORE
Department of Law, University of Bristol, UK
ARTHUR AUSTIN, The Empire Strikes Back: Outsiders and the Struggle Over Legal
Education. New York: New York University Press, 1998, 215pp., £24 (hbk).
The Empire Strikes Back tells the dramatic story of the fight for control over legal edu-
cation in the United States. It is a study of how legal scholarship is used to aggrandize
592 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 9(4)
06 Reviews (jl/d) 30/10/00 2:47 pm Page 592
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