Looking into the Arkham Horror

It looks more complicated than it is...

Games are a wonderful way of exploring rules and regulatory systems. Lately I've been playing The Arkham Horror, a fun cooperative board game that raises a lot of issues for me in terms of regulatory theory. Sure, this may be taking the fun out of it, unless you are a rules theory geek in which case it adds a whole new layer of enjoyment.

ALTA Postmortem

ALTA is over for another year and it is a good time for some reflections. I stayed pretty close to the teaching and learning sessions and this demonstrated what is to me the best thing about ALTA, a chance to catch up with what is happening in innovations around the local law schools, and to meet face to face with those I have only had email contact with before.

Learning Module: Rules and Ruleplay

Download the module here.

If you have read my previous blog entries you will know that I find rules systems fascinating and absolutely fundamental to what we do as lawyers. Like the law itself, we have traditionally thought about rules as being neutral systems which aspire toward fairness, objectivity and equal treatment. Like law, we must realise that the rules of games (including sport) reflect particular cultures, points of view and values.

ALTA Day 1

Well, this year's ALTA is a pretty warm and inviting conference given that it is being held in a building with all the warmth and charm of a stainless steel urinal (sigh, business school architecture). Day one is over and like any nerdy blogger, here I am updating my blog rather than drinking at the bar. Two things really struck me as interesting from today's program, the increasing pressures on law reform and the intriguing concept of a putting a capstone task in a law program.

ALTA 2010 Paper, Legal Literacies and cultural capital

I'm back from  annual leave and off for a whirlwind global tour of three conferences back to back.  Well, Auckland, Melbourne and Melbourne, but that's pretty good for me.  I've attached here the draft of my ALTA paper on the Legal Literacies project at VLS and how it relates to Bourdieu's idea of cultural capital.  I have to emphasise, it really is a first draft.  Comments are welcome.

The paper is here.