There are over 300 Federal Court opinions with the word "zombie". Let's create a legal studies casebook exploring "zombie" law.
ZOMBIE LAW: Zombies in the Federal Courts; a case book
ZOMBIE LAW: Zombies in the Federal Courts; a case book
This edited collection is a serious book compendium of epic real life zombie stories as told by the U.S. Federal Courts. This Kickstarter project funds production of a law school style bound casebook to include case opinions from the over 300 U.S. Federal Court opinions with the word “zombie” (and “zombies”, “zombi”, “zombis”, “zombified”, “zombism”, etc..)
To promote this project, I’ve created some neat artsy rewards. The Supreme Court as zombie (poster and postcard), a limited edition Zombie USB Flash Drive (pull the brain out of the head!), a T-shirt, honorable mention as sponsor, personalized zombied portraits, and of course, THE BOOK!
This edited collection is a serious book compendium of epic real life zombie stories as told by the U.S. Federal Courts. This Kickstarter project funds production of a law school style bound casebook to include case opinions from the over 300 U.S. Federal Court opinions with the word “zombie” (and “zombies”, “zombi”, “zombis”, “zombified”, “zombism”, etc..)
To promote this project, I’ve created some neat artsy rewards. The Supreme Court as zombie (poster and postcard), a limited edition Zombie USB Flash Drive (pull the brain out of the head!), a T-shirt, honorable mention as sponsor, personalized zombied portraits, and of course, THE BOOK!
This project is to create a beautiful bound book that is an edited collection of the 330+ real case opinions in U.S. Federal Courts in which "zombie" appear (also "zombies" and "zombi" and "zombified" and "zombielike" and "zombified" and "zombism" etc ). The book will appear like a traditional law school case book and fit in well on any legal bookshelf. It will also be appropriate for use in any advanced reading context (high school or undergraduate) or any basic law course aimed to improve case reading skills and/or exposure to U.S. Federal law.
All sorts of people will like this book. It would be a good gift for any lawyer or law student but also any intellectual zombie fan as well as anyone interested in American law. Every federal case is itself an epic short story and so this book is a compendium of real zombie short stories. The book is full of real life "zombie" tales packed with legal terminology and federal procedure.
PLUS GREAT REWARDS
ZOMBIE BRAIN 4GB FLASH DRIVE - LIMITED EDITION - pull brain from head
Zombie Supreme Court - POSTCARDS / POSTERS
Zombie Law T-SHIRTS
But really, it's ABOUT THE CASEBOOKS
Because WHO DOESN'T LOVE LAW BOOKS?!
The "zombie" in federal courts are very interesting. Aside from the intellectual property cases that provide some reflection on modern zombie fiction, there are also ample metaphoric uses of the word in these judicial writings. Judges have referred to "zombie precedents" and "zombie litigation". There are zombie corporations, zombie criminals, a significant number are social security cases in which people describe themselves in zombie condition and even a recent mentions of cybernetic zombies.
Unlike other works of zombie academia, the zombies in this book are all real. Most zombie scholarship uses hypothetical zombies as tropes to create entertaining and extreme fact patterns that can be used to explain complex subject matters. This has been used effectively for neuroscience (Schlozman, Voytek), international policy analysis (Drezner), public health (Center for Disease Control), geography (Kickstarter project: Zombie-Based Learning), survival skills (Brooks) amongst other subjects (See Zombie Research Society) including also academics who focus on the fictional character itself (Mogk, Brooks).
This Zombie Law book is different because it does not use zombies as hypotheticals to teach law. It is not conjecture about what zombies are or might be. This book is a compendium of real usages of the actual word in American jurisprudence. This book is a collection of real legal cases that literally include "zombies" (or similar word) in US Federal Court opinions..
The basic outline of the book will separate most cases into issues of corporations, medications, criminals and, of course intellectual property. Major sections will be devoted to Social Security (disability) law, corporate fraud and issues of criminal intent. There are noteworthy cases referring to post traumatic stress disorder and many recent Social Security cases regarding of fibromyalgia. The intellectual property cases are about popular zombie fiction and also so-called "vicious zombi" patents. In general, the idea of zombies in a mall is public domain for copyright but particular forms of zombie products are protected by trademark.
Frequently there is a sort of double meaning in the word. In Social Security cases, the word zombie is found as a symptom of pain, depression and anxiety but also the side effect of medications prescribed for those same symptoms. In criminal law, zombie appear in victim's description of their assailant's behavior but also as defense argument against criminal intent. For corporations the ironic question of corporate-personhood begs the question, 'what is a person?', which is often the implied question of zombie studies.
I have done a lot of work reading these cases and developing some common themes. If some of this sounds familiar, maybe you have seen my recent blogging at ZombieLaw.Wordpress.Com. There you can see my recent obsession about "zombie" rhetoric in law, politics and current events. Also on that blog are many examples of my zombifying portrait art.
The blog is fun, but blogs make terrible paperweights. This project is to make a real book. The book is to be a black and white casebook of real Federal Court opinions. The blog is about all sorts of zombie legal-political rhetoric but check out the entries on "undead" and "walking dead", to get an idea of the absurd juxtapositions created by examining one word across the whole set of Federal cases. Those posts are similar to the premise of this book; to collect all the cases with one word to further understand the word. For examples of cases that will actually appear in this Zombie Law book, see these ZombieLaw posts about the first Federal Court appearance of each of the following words: "zombis", "zombi", "zombies", "zombie", "zombified"
It is going to take a considerable amount of time to properly edit this book. I will have to beg friends to proof-read and plan to pay for at least some editing assistance. It will likely cost more than the money raised on this Kickstarter but I will invest myself and we can produce this together. Most of the costs will be directly related to the cost of producing the book (paper, cover and binding are expensive). I expect to produce it at a local NYC printer who will arrange the cover binding from a company in Pennsylvania.
The USB flash drives were designed by me, I drew a picture, scanned it, emailed it to an internet website that makes custom usb, and working with their designers, perfected the design to produce a limited order of 250 of them. These are limited edition and unless there is strong demand I will not be reordering this design so this is the only availability. If I do reorder, I will plan to slightly change the color scheme so that this set of 250 remains a limited edition.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Zombie Law is part of my ongoing study of rhetoric and strange creatures. I am a practicing attorney and doctoral student with interests in the development of creativity (particularly in the domains of law and politics). Semantics, metaphor studies (Turner, Lakoff) and cognitive linguistics fascinate me. Modern rhetoric in educational psychology research about "creativity" led me to Frankensteins' alienation, Faustian demons and, of course zombies.
This book idea is to be the first of a stream of publications I hope to edit. There are many strange creatures that could be cataloged in the record of Federal Court opinions. For example I am already in the process of blogging through the cases of "Ninja" in the Federal Courts. And I have another similar project developing for "Cocker Spaniel". Both will hopefully become their own books too, but probably just e-books or maybe trade paperback. "Zombies" is a bigger set of cases and I feel the character deserves the more weighty, grimoire-like tome of a properly bound legal casebook.
WHY I NEED YOUR HELP
This Kickstarter project is to create this book for the world, to target that small crossover of two fetish-object communities, lawyers and zombie fans. The modern self-publishing sites don't offer the kind of bound books that law school textbooks traditionally have; that binding is expensive. I hope to produce at least a small run of 100 bound law books at around 700 pages. Based on your interest and comments we may may order a larger production and/or alter the page count. Eventually this book may become a more commercially available item in other forms but the goal of this project is to fund the first edition bound collection of Zombie in Federal Courts. This book can only become a realistic-looking law book with funding directly from the niche law zombie community and supportive friends. I know this community exists and I hope Kickstarter can help me reach them.
There is still something special about an actual book and a legal casebook is a classic type of object. Let's make a really beautiful exemplar; buckram cover, Smyth-sewn binding, with gold-colored lettering on the cover and spine that says: "Zombie Law: Zombies in the Federal Courts".
I need your help to fund more than just a blog, more than an e-book, more than a trade paperback... a real law school textbook. A beautiful weighty book to use as a paperweight on your law office coffee table or a doorstop in the dorm. Great to read on the toilet or waiting in court for your case to be called. A great conversation starter for anyone scanning your bookshelf or reading over your shoulder. And a perfect gift for any law zombie you might know (there are so many of us). And if you happen to teach an introductory law class, you can use these cases to spice up the brief-writing exercises. These are real Federal Court cases and they include zombies. Fun and educational.
GREAT REWARDS
As a reward for helping to make this book a reality, you can becomeHonorable Law Zombie (36 characters sponsor name in book and on website with hyperlink subject to editor approval) and can get other awesome ZombieLaw swag. I have designed a custom Zombie USB Flash drive that you can't get anywhere else - it's really awesome. It can hook to a keychain through the earhole and is adorable, macabre and functional.
Also postcards and posters with "Zombie SCOTUS", "Zombie Law" T-shirts, and if you send me your head shot, I'll zombify your portrait (send as many head shots as you want, I will zombify $3 each).
EVERYTHING (except the finished book) WILL BE READY THIS HALLOWEEN 2012 (Yes, you'll get the rewards before the book!) - THE BOOK ITSELF WILL NOT BE READY UNTIL NEXT HALLOWEEN 2013(maybe sooner, maybe much sooner, but I want to give us plenty of time to edit it perfect and not rush it just to have it done in two months - you'll get the zombie USB drive, the postcards, poster, zombied portraits, and the T-shirt all now, this Halloween 2012).
Postcard is a real snail mail USPS postcard
Poster 11x17 appropriate for walls in law school library offices or student recreation areas or dorm rooms or everywhere.
T-shirts will will say ZOMBIE LAW - design subject to change - 100% cotton shirts, (S to XXL)
PLUS Original Personalized Art
ZOMBIFIED PORTRAIT of YOU (or your friends)
Send a head shot image and receive it back as a zombie - See the picture of me (above), and see my prior zombied portraits in many ZombieLaw posts.
AND most importantly...
THE BOOK...
The Zombie Law case book will be amazing, some of the cases are hilarious, others are sad, others are just those insane stories that only a Federal Court can tell. Each case is a short real life zombie story. And the book will look great, designed to mimic a real law school book, so much so that it could easily be used and adapted for use in an academic setting. Hardcover bindery bound, gold-colored printing on cover. And with the e-book backup, great for the subway reading, or while waiting for your case to be called in court, or just another fun evening reading zombie law and drinking whiskey -
- Remember Jimmy Stewart in the beginning of Anatomy of a Murder as small town lawyer Paul Biegler explaining "I'm making a living. I run some abstracts -- divorce Jane Doe from John Doe once in a while,-- or threaten a few dead beats -- and in the evening I drink rye whiskey and read law (p.9)" --
And really, who doesn't like to spend their evening drinking whiskey and reading law??! If you like zombies, this is law you want to be reading.
WARNING: Reading federal case law can improve your reading skills.
PLEASE HELP CREATE this wonderful book
With sincere thanks,
- Joshua Warren
*** ZOMBIE LAW - Zombies in the Federal Courts ***
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
NOM NOM
THANK YOU
Examples of Quotes from real zombie cases:
"zombie litigation" Langer v. Presbyterian Medical Ctr., Nos. 87-4000, 88-1064, 91-1814, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9448 (E.D. Pa. 1995)
"the idea of zombies awakening is not enough to sustain a charge of infringement" Capcom Co. v. The MKR Group, Inc., No. C. 08-0904, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83836, 2008 WL 4661479 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2008)
"the general idea of zombies in a mall is not protectable". Tessler v. NBC Universal, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108353 (E.D. Va. Dec. 5, 2008) citingCapcom Co., Ltd. v. MKR Group, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83836, 2008 WL 4661479, at *9 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2008)
"plaintiffs intended to protest mindless consumerism when they dressed inzombie costumes ... plaintiffs dancing to the music while pretending to bezombies" Baribeau v. City of Minneapolis, 596 F.3d 465 (8th Cir. 2009)
"the Supreme Court's recent decisions have completely destroyed the vitality of Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U.S. 200, decided twenty-seven years ago, and have left that case but an impotent zombi." Gardella v. Chandler, 172 F.2d 402 (2nd Cir. 1949)
"The most violent game in the record, "The House of the Dead," depictszombiesbeing killed flamboyantly, with much severing of limbs and effusion of blood" Am. Amusement Mach. Ass'n v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001)
"The cases thus present a tale of zombie precedent. A rule definitively extinguished by statutory amendment in 1989 continues to prowl, repeatedly re-animated by mistaken citation and dicta." Crowell v. Knowles, 483 F. Supp. 2d 925 (D.Ariz. 2007)
"The corporations were no more Douglas' evil zombies" Scholes v. Lehmann, 56 F.3d 750 (7th Cir. 1995)
"a cybernetic zombie that lives on in cyberspace" Adams v. Ford Motor, 653 F.3d 299 (3rd Circ. 2011)
THANK YOU!
Head to the Kickstarter page to back this project or find out more!!
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