Graham Watts
Biographic Data
| ID | 328647 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Graham Watts |
| GIVEN NAMES | Graham |
| FAMILY NAME | Watts |
| SIGNATURE | WATTS G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5153-8279 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 76 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis, Princeton
This short note is not a book review but a set of reflections intended to indicate the potential benefits to jurists of an encounter with Professor Rhodri Lewis’s book Shakespeare’s Tragic Art . Shakespeare’s genius, as Lewis finds it performed in the tragedies, is that he does not try to make sense of life but dramatises our common struggle to make sense of life. These reflections will hopefully demonstrate that legal trials perform in a compara…
Four Species of Suspectacle
The “suspectacle” of my title is intended to connect the idea of performance to the idea of suspicion through their apparent shared concern for the visual a-“spect”. The presumptively dominant concern for the visual in the language of (and talk about) suspicion will be critiqued in this essay. My methodology is etymological and philological, which entails suspicion of the surface of words and an excavation of deeper significations. I offer four p…
The Making Sense of Politics, Media, and Law
From Trump's 'make America great again' to Johnson's 'build back better', performative politicians use The Making Sense to persuade their public audiences. Law 'makers' do it too: A courtroom trial is a 'truth factory' in which facts are not found but forged. The 'court of popular opinion' is another such factory, though its processes are often flawed and its products faulty. Where courts of law aim to make civil peace, 'trial by Twitter' makes c…
AnteEditorial
Passing resemblance
Legal scholars have frequently observed that the word ‘person’ and the language of legal ‘personality’ derives from the Latin persona, which was the ancient Romans’ term for an actor’s mask, but they have seldom attended to the theatrical significance of the mask and sought there for insights into the legal idea. To address that lack, this article presents three case studies connected by concern for the passing on of theatrical masks. The first m…
Law and Humanities issue 14.2
Like almost all meetings to have taken place since the onset of COVID-19, the Law and Humanities roundtable of July 2020 took place online – this fact taking on some significance given that the foc
Law making music
This essay proceeds in three parts. The first part introduces a Māori waiata (a ceremonial song, with movements) that occurred in the debating chamber of the New Zealand parliament in 2017 on the Third Reading of Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill. The resulting statute confers legal personality on the Whanganui River. The second part advances a way of approaching musical appreciation as a mental activity which, by joining soun…
Sound and Fury Signifying Brexit
“Acoustic Jurisprudence” seeks to move our appreciation of the operation of sound in law beyond the merely metaphorical use of acoustic language to the audible quality of the soundscape itself. In this article, I connect the linguistic-metaphorical to the audible-sensory. My context is the ‘Brexit’ dispute as it has been played out in the UK Parliament, the UK Supreme Court, and elsewhere, especially as that dispute came to a crescendo on three o…
Forensic Shakespeare
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Soft governance, restratification and the 2004 general medical services contract
In the UK National Health Service, primary care organisation (PCO) managers have traditionally relied on the soft leadership of general practitioners based on professional self-regulation rather than direct managerial control. The 2004 general medical services contract (nGMS) represented a significant break from this arrangement by introducing new performance management mechanisms for PCO managers to measure and improve general practice work. Thi…
In search of the cancer candidate
First published in 1991, the ideas embedded in 'Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox' offered a novel and rational explanation for the lay public's failure to fully engage with the lifestyle messages offered by health educators. During the course of a large ethnographic study in South Wales, Davison and colleagues described the emergence of what they termed the coronary candidate. Candidacy provides a 'cultural mechanism' that facilitates …
Sex Distribution of Offspring-Parents Obesity
This study, which is based on two cross sectional surveys’ data, aims to establish any effect of parental obesity sex distribution of offspring and to replicate the results that led to the hypothesis that obesity may be associated with sex-linked recessive lethal gene. A representative sample of 4,064 couples living in Renfrew/Paisley, Scotland was surveyed 1972–1976. A total of 2,338 offspring from 1,477 of the couples screened in 1972–1976, liv…
Sex Distribution of Offspring-Parents Obesity
This study, which is based on two cross sectional surveys' data, aims to establish any effect of parental obesity sex distribution of offspring and to replicate the results that led to the hypothesis that obesity may be associated with sex-linked recessive lethal gene. A representative sample of 4,064 couples living in Renfrew/Paisley, Scotland was surveyed 1972-1976. A total of 2,338 offspring from 1,477 of the couples screened in 1972-1976, liv…
The character of social connection in law and literature
This paper argues that law and society are disconnected in practice, and that this is attributable, in part, to law’s disconnection from the arts and humanities in our schemes of formal education. When we draw out the legal yarn from its cultural fabric, we find that it is remarkably thin. It is especially inadequate to describe the complexity of human interconnection, and even lacks a language to express such commonplace connections as unmarried…
Scales Measuring Psychosocial Antecedents of Coital Initiation among Adolescents in a Rural Southern State
The psychometric properties of psychosexual scales designed to examine intentions toward sexual intercourse were examined. Participants from 22 schools in central Alabama provided data on demographics, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and intentions toward sexual intercourse. Theoretical constructs from Theory of Reasoned Action and Social Cognitive Theory guided the development of items assessing psychosocial aspects of sexual intercourse. Finding…
Invisible women? The importance of gender in lay beliefs about heart problems
Coronary heart disease (CHD) accounts for over a quarter of deaths in Britain, yet few qualitative studies have explored beliefs about 'heart problems' in the general population. A previous study of lay beliefs about coronary candidacy (or 'the kind of person who gets heart trouble') paid little attention to gender. However, semi-structured interviews with 61 men and women reveal that gender plays a vital role in lay perceptions. Respondents' acc…
Sociodemographic Factors, Attitudes, and Expectations Toward Adolescent Coitus
The objective of this study is to examine the effects of race gender and family structure on attitude toward coitus and peer and parent-guardian-expectations regarding coitus among adolescents. The 1998 Alabama Adolescent Survey was used to collect data. Respondents included 2146 9th and 10th grade students who attended public high schools in Alabama. MANOVA analyses indicated significant main and interactive effects of gender race and family str…
Deprivation and health in Scotland
Invisible women? The importance of gender in lay beliefs about heart problems
Coronary heart disease (CHD) accounts for over a quarter of deaths in Britain, yet few qualitative studies have explored beliefs about 'heart problems' in the general population. A previous study of lay beliefs about coronary candidacy (or 'the kind of person who gets heart trouble') paid little attention to gender. However, semi-structured interviews with 61 men and women reveal that gender plays a vital role in lay perceptions. Respondents' acc…
Deprivation and health in Scotland
In search of the cancer candidate
First published in 1991, the ideas embedded in 'Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox' offered a novel and rational explanation for the lay public's failure to fully engage with the lifestyle messages offered by health educators. During the course of a large ethnographic study in South Wales, Davison and colleagues described the emergence of what they termed the coronary candidate. Candidacy provides a 'cultural mechanism' that facilitates …
Soft governance, restratification and the 2004 general medical services contract
In the UK National Health Service, primary care organisation (PCO) managers have traditionally relied on the soft leadership of general practitioners based on professional self-regulation rather than direct managerial control. The 2004 general medical services contract (nGMS) represented a significant break from this arrangement by introducing new performance management mechanisms for PCO managers to measure and improve general practice work. Thi…
The Making Sense of Politics, Media, and Law
From Trump's 'make America great again' to Johnson's 'build back better', performative politicians use The Making Sense to persuade their public audiences. Law 'makers' do it too: A courtroom trial is a 'truth factory' in which facts are not found but forged. The 'court of popular opinion' is another such factory, though its processes are often flawed and its products faulty. Where courts of law aim to make civil peace, 'trial by Twitter' makes c…
Deprivation and health in Scotland
Sociodemographic Factors, Attitudes, and Expectations Toward Adolescent Coitus
The objective of this study is to examine the effects of race gender and family structure on attitude toward coitus and peer and parent-guardian-expectations regarding coitus among adolescents. The 1998 Alabama Adolescent Survey was used to collect data. Respondents included 2146 9th and 10th grade students who attended public high schools in Alabama. MANOVA analyses indicated significant main and interactive effects of gender race and family str…
Invisible women? The importance of gender in lay beliefs about heart problems
Coronary heart disease (CHD) accounts for over a quarter of deaths in Britain, yet few qualitative studies have explored beliefs about 'heart problems' in the general population. A previous study of lay beliefs about coronary candidacy (or 'the kind of person who gets heart trouble') paid little attention to gender. However, semi-structured interviews with 61 men and women reveal that gender plays a vital role in lay perceptions. Respondents' acc…
Scales Measuring Psychosocial Antecedents of Coital Initiation among Adolescents in a Rural Southern State
The psychometric properties of psychosexual scales designed to examine intentions toward sexual intercourse were examined. Participants from 22 schools in central Alabama provided data on demographics, knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and intentions toward sexual intercourse. Theoretical constructs from Theory of Reasoned Action and Social Cognitive Theory guided the development of items assessing psychosocial aspects of sexual intercourse. Finding…
The character of social connection in law and literature
This paper argues that law and society are disconnected in practice, and that this is attributable, in part, to law’s disconnection from the arts and humanities in our schemes of formal education. When we draw out the legal yarn from its cultural fabric, we find that it is remarkably thin. It is especially inadequate to describe the complexity of human interconnection, and even lacks a language to express such commonplace connections as unmarried…
Sex Distribution of Offspring-Parents Obesity
This study, which is based on two cross sectional surveys’ data, aims to establish any effect of parental obesity sex distribution of offspring and to replicate the results that led to the hypothesis that obesity may be associated with sex-linked recessive lethal gene. A representative sample of 4,064 couples living in Renfrew/Paisley, Scotland was surveyed 1972–1976. A total of 2,338 offspring from 1,477 of the couples screened in 1972–1976, liv…
Sex Distribution of Offspring-Parents Obesity
This study, which is based on two cross sectional surveys' data, aims to establish any effect of parental obesity sex distribution of offspring and to replicate the results that led to the hypothesis that obesity may be associated with sex-linked recessive lethal gene. A representative sample of 4,064 couples living in Renfrew/Paisley, Scotland was surveyed 1972-1976. A total of 2,338 offspring from 1,477 of the couples screened in 1972-1976, liv…
In search of the cancer candidate
First published in 1991, the ideas embedded in 'Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox' offered a novel and rational explanation for the lay public's failure to fully engage with the lifestyle messages offered by health educators. During the course of a large ethnographic study in South Wales, Davison and colleagues described the emergence of what they termed the coronary candidate. Candidacy provides a 'cultural mechanism' that facilitates …
Soft governance, restratification and the 2004 general medical services contract
In the UK National Health Service, primary care organisation (PCO) managers have traditionally relied on the soft leadership of general practitioners based on professional self-regulation rather than direct managerial control. The 2004 general medical services contract (nGMS) represented a significant break from this arrangement by introducing new performance management mechanisms for PCO managers to measure and improve general practice work. Thi…
Forensic Shakespeare
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Law and Humanities issue 14.2
Like almost all meetings to have taken place since the onset of COVID-19, the Law and Humanities roundtable of July 2020 took place online – this fact taking on some significance given that the foc
Law making music
This essay proceeds in three parts. The first part introduces a Māori waiata (a ceremonial song, with movements) that occurred in the debating chamber of the New Zealand parliament in 2017 on the Third Reading of Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill. The resulting statute confers legal personality on the Whanganui River. The second part advances a way of approaching musical appreciation as a mental activity which, by joining soun…
Sound and Fury Signifying Brexit
“Acoustic Jurisprudence” seeks to move our appreciation of the operation of sound in law beyond the merely metaphorical use of acoustic language to the audible quality of the soundscape itself. In this article, I connect the linguistic-metaphorical to the audible-sensory. My context is the ‘Brexit’ dispute as it has been played out in the UK Parliament, the UK Supreme Court, and elsewhere, especially as that dispute came to a crescendo on three o…
Passing resemblance
Legal scholars have frequently observed that the word ‘person’ and the language of legal ‘personality’ derives from the Latin persona, which was the ancient Romans’ term for an actor’s mask, but they have seldom attended to the theatrical significance of the mask and sought there for insights into the legal idea. To address that lack, this article presents three case studies connected by concern for the passing on of theatrical masks. The first m…
AnteEditorial
The Making Sense of Politics, Media, and Law
From Trump's 'make America great again' to Johnson's 'build back better', performative politicians use The Making Sense to persuade their public audiences. Law 'makers' do it too: A courtroom trial is a 'truth factory' in which facts are not found but forged. The 'court of popular opinion' is another such factory, though its processes are often flawed and its products faulty. Where courts of law aim to make civil peace, 'trial by Twitter' makes c…
Four Species of Suspectacle
The “suspectacle” of my title is intended to connect the idea of performance to the idea of suspicion through their apparent shared concern for the visual a-“spect”. The presumptively dominant concern for the visual in the language of (and talk about) suspicion will be critiqued in this essay. My methodology is etymological and philological, which entails suspicion of the surface of words and an excavation of deeper significations. I offer four p…
Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis, Princeton
This short note is not a book review but a set of reflections intended to indicate the potential benefits to jurists of an encounter with Professor Rhodri Lewis’s book Shakespeare’s Tragic Art . Shakespeare’s genius, as Lewis finds it performed in the tragedies, is that he does not try to make sense of life but dramatises our common struggle to make sense of life. These reflections will hopefully demonstrate that legal trials perform in a compara…
Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Law in Society and Culture (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Social Psychology (4 works)