Special issue : the legacy of Stuart Scheingold / edited by Austin Sarat.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction : Stuart Scheingold, a personal reflection / Austin Sarat -- The myth of the myth of rights / George I. Lovell -- "A madman full of paranoid guile" : the myth of rights in the modern American mind / Jeffrey R. Dudas -- Novelty and the politics of rights / Helena Silverstein -- Political criminology, the plural state, and the politics of affect / Leonard Feldman -- Phantom racism and the myth of crime and punishment / Naomi Murakawa -- Putting politics in its place : reflections on political criminology, immigration and crime / William T. Lyons, Lisa L. Miller -- Imagining otherness : the political novel and animal rights / Claire E. Rasmussen -- Scheingold's failure : his finest book / Malcolm M. Feeley -- Rights, community, and democracy : a sociolegal critique of the neoconservative case against rights / Michael McCann, Stuart Scheingold.

This special issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society is dedicated to the life and work of beloved legal scholar Stuart Scheingold. The articles brought together in this volume articulate the inspiring contribution Scheingold made to political science and law and society. The final chapter 'Rights, Community, and Democracy: A Socio-Legal Critique of the Neoconservative Case against Rights' is a work authored by Stuart Scheingold which has been completed by his co-author and is published here for the first time. This volume shows how Scheingold helped to bridge the differences between how rights are expressed within the law, and how they are actually put into practice. Centering on the theme of 'the myth of rights' the chapters discuss diverse aspects of society, crime, politics, and law; most specifically street crime, immigration and crime control policies, political criminology and urban social control, race and 'displaced anxiety' within communities in the US, and animal rights.