Spot the Irony
There aren't many law review articles that draw readership and attention from legal scholars across subject areas, or that retain importance for years on end, but a few do, and one of them is the late Robert Cover's essay, "Nomos and Narrative."
After reading it several times I still find it profound, moving, confusing, and challenging, and I'm not alone in this. An excerpt from an abstract about this essay reads as follows: "Nomos and Narrative encourages those who read it to see a system of law as nothing less than a "world". And each such world is identified by Cover as the product of a narrative that, at once, shapes, expresses, and may ultimately threaten the identity of those who live within it."
The Berkeley Electronic Press recently published a new symposium comprised of essays by important legal thinkers about "Nomos and Narrative." They all look interesting and provocative, and also, guess what, they are all written by men.