The following guest post was written by Marva Barnett, author of

What is just and what is legal are all too often not the same thing. Nina Totenberg’s recounting of the current Supreme Court case about prosecutorial immunity illuminates what Victor Hugo called “the quarrel between rights and law.” Not until that quarrel is resolved, he wrote in the preface to a collection of his socially-conscious speeches, will society reach true civilization.

In this case, attorneys for the Council Bluffs, Iowa, prosecutors argue explicitly, bluntly, that Americans have no constitutional right not to be framed for a crime they didn’t commit. Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee were imprisoned in 1977 for a murder they had no hand in. Tenaciously stating his innocence, Mr. Harrington was finally released in 2003 after a case review in which eyewitnesses recanted their testimony. Under Iowa law, neither man has legal recourse to receive compensation for the 25 years lost because of fabricated evidence. Their suit against the Council Bluffs police and prosecutor for violating of constitutional rights has reached the Supreme Court. An objective case summary shows that the police and prosecutor ignored evidence pointing to another, well-connected suspect and accepted testimony against Mr. Harrington from a man with a criminal record who erred in his story about the murder location and weapon involved.

Still, attorneys for the prosecutors, while hypothetically admitting that Mr. Harrington might have been framed, contend that such framing is legal, though perhaps not just. Victor Hugo must be raging in his Paris Pantheon tomb! Were he able to put pen to paper, he would this morning be dashing off a public letter. Justice is divine, he would write, far above the laws that people create. When everyone can see where justice lies in a cause, should we not choose what is just over what is legal? Why are laws not written to promote justice? Human rights come from God, and laws cannot morally overcome them. Jean Valjean, after 19 years at hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread, learned this from a man of God. The author of Les Misérables would be making the case for Mr. Harrington, human rights, and justice.

The most recent issue of TimeOut Kids features a series of articles on children and sexuality, highlighting the many dilemmas that parents face when educating their children about the realities of sex and gender. Ken Corbett, author of Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities, is quoted extensively in a piece on the particularly thorny problem of parenting a gender variant child. Though the repressive desire to force Johnny into playing quarterback when he'd really rather be doing needlepoint has been tempered over the years, Corbett notes that the current model of overencouraging, "free-to-be-you-and-me" parenting can be just as damaging:

“We’re stuck between advocacy and reactive pathologizing,” he says. “We want to be responsive and encouraging, but at the same time, it’s not right—ethically or responsibly—to predict a child’s future. We don’t have an archive of what happens to gender-variant kids. A boy who displays feminine traits as a child may grow up to be transgender, he may be a gay man, he may be a straight man who is a good father, he may become an artist with a sensitive temperament.”

There seems to be no magic model for parenting, regardless of the child's gender identity, but Corbett notes that communication may be the most important element of any healthy relationship. "If your son says he wants to be a girl, Corbett adds, ask him why. 'The answer may not be what you expect.'”

A discussion about the piece continues on the New York Times's Motherlode blog.

A recent unexpected celebrity endorsement is just the latest in a string of successes for Yale's Icons of America series, which presents brief, lively volumes on our nation's major cultural touchstones. Past works have covered the Empire State Building, Gone with the Wind, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech

For those unfamiliar with the Icons series, we've dug up a pair of YouTube clips highlighting how entertaining—and sometimes prescient—these books can be. The first features Josh Ozersky, author of The Hamburger, in an ABC Frontline piece on the booming business of the burger in the midst of the current recession. Watch as Ozersky and the anchor revel in the humble decadence of America's favorite sandwich:

The second clip comes from a reading Steve Fraser, the author of Wall Street, and Ozersky attended together at McNally Jackson Bookstore in New York. The camera work may be a little shaky, but, in light of the current economic situation, Fraser's insights (in June 2008, no less!) are deadly accurate:

Not only did Joseph's photograph maintain the inexplicable mirroring and black-and-white color scheme of Ms. McCain's fateful snapshot; it also features a choice title from YUP's backlist, Bernard Williams's On Opera. The fact that Joseph's library contains Williams's award-winning volume shows he's a man of great taste and intellect, and we're confident that Arthur Danto's Andy Warhol will fit right in on his shelves.

Thanks to all who entered, and enjoy your free book, Joseph!

"Some people make history; others make history interesting." So begins a two-page spread in the October issue of Dramatics Magazine featuring two recent highlights from Yale's drama list, Marc Robinson's The American Play and Robert Brustein's The Tainted Muse. Produced by the Educational Theatre Association and oriented toward practitioners in the field of performing arts, Dramatics brings an informed perspective to the analysis of Robinson's survey and Brustein's original re-interpretation of Shakespeare.

The lede in question refers to Robinson's book, a wide-ranging history of American theatre that places dramatic works in context of the societies that both produced and responded to them. In his effort to "make history entertaining," Robinson draws upon early American works from Royall Tyler and William Dunlap as well as contemporary plays by David Mamet and Edward Albee, never losing sight of the subtle details that marked the changes in staging and dramatic style through the centuries.

Brustein's study of Shakespeare's racial, gender, and sexual prejudices, The Tainted Muse, earns equally high marks for its ability to draw contemporary connections from the Bard's world to ours. The Dramatics reviewer wonders how Shakespeare would respond to today's debates over racism and homophobia and notes in Brustein's words that, "Only when the world is totally free of prejudice will we have the right to make fundamental judgments on Shakespeare's."

To read excerpts from both books and to discover more works on theatre, visit the Press's online Performing Arts catalog.

When Meghan McCain's Wednesday evening dispatch sent the Twitter world a-flutter, we at YUP weren't surprised in the slightest. To our minds, there's no better way to spend an evening at home than in the company of a fine book. And Arthur Danto's latest, Andy Warhol, is no slouch of a choice.

If you'd like a shot at your own Warholian "15 minutes of fame," or perhaps just a chance to win a fantastic work of biographical art history, send us a (tasteful!) picture of yourself reading any Yale University Press book or just looking Warholian, and you'll be entered to win a copy of Andy Warhol. Winners will be chosen at random next, er...Wednesday evening.

Submissions will be accepted via our Facebook profile or via email. We'll post the best ones (with the entrants' permission) on our Facebook page. Good luck!

Caleb Smith's The Prison and the American Imagination, which will be the topic of discussion at an event at Labyrinth Books today in New Haven, takes a textual approach to the culture of imprisonment, drawing upon legal, political, and literary texts including the works of Dickinson, Melville, and Emerson. Smith explains how these often dehumanizing representations of confinement continue to affect our society and our politics today. Smith's elegant website provides additional images and texts that inform his well-rendered argument.

Readers may also be interested in Anne-Marie Cusac's Cruel and Unusual: The Culture of Punishment in America, which was featured in a recent discussion on Connecticut Public Radio's "Where We Live" program. Yale professor and philosopher Shelley Kagan also contributed to the broadcast.

Yesterday, legendary guitarist and inventor Les Paul passed away at the age of 94. Paul's innovations, including multi-track recording and the Gibson electric guitar that bears his name, forever changed the landscape of popular music. The guitarist's own compositions, ranging from lilting country ballads to frenetic flat-picking hootenannies to sentimental jazz pieces, highlighted not only his electronic wizardry but also his incomparable musician's touch.

In 2008, Paul lent his insights to a collection of essays by contemporary guitar players entitled State of the Axe: Guitar Masters in Photographs and Words. Featuring more than sixty intimate black-and-white portraits of guitar masters playing their instruments, State of the Axe taps into the feeling of true joy from creating music that Paul relished so notably over more than 60 years of performing.

For a sample of Paul's pioneering work with his then-wife Mary Ford, click on the video below.

One hundred and fifty years after Darwin first proposed the theory of evolution, the debate between religion and science continues to raise tensions in America. A recent USA Today article advocating peace between evolution and creationism generated nearly 100 comments in a little more than a day; the sponsored online chat drew more questions than the moderators could answer.