Kahn, Paul2021-11-262021-11-262001-01-01Paul W Kahn, Freedom, autonomy, and the cultural study of law, 13 YALE JL & HUMAN. 141 (2001).1613467http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/2667In the spring of 1999, I published a little book with a big title: The Cultural Study of Law, Reconstructing Legal Scholarship. The ambition of the book was to clear a space within law schools for a study of law that was not directed at the issue of legal reform. I urged a theoretical approach free of the insistent question: "What should the law be?" The reasons for my plea were not new. The rule of law, I argued, is not just a set of rules to be applied to an otherwise independent social order. Rather, law is, in part, constitutive of the self-understanding of individuals and communities. In particular, Americans often identify themselves as citizens within a polity characterized by the rule of law. This is not the only way in which Americans imagine themselves, but it is a powerful way for many people.https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/327https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1326&context=fss_papers&unstamped=1