Introduction: popular cultures and the law

In Bristol, a breastfeeding mother is ejected from a pub on the grounds that she has brought a minor into a drinking establishment, and that a pub is no place for a 'proper' mother. In Austria, public strollers through the city square are confronted with the sight of supposed asylum seekers in a large container, and are asked to vote online, reality TV style, to evict the refugee of their choice from the country. In Queensland, legislators try to decide whether dead human bodies preserved through plastination, then dressed, posed, and exhibited are art or desecration. In the world of a Spielberg film, crimes are foreseen and averted before they actually occur. And in movie after movie, lawyers argue, judges pronounce, and courtrooms erupt into cheers or tears as cases reach their conclusion. At first, these instances seem to bear little meaningful relationship to one another. However, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, they all share a crucial common feature: all of these instances are moments or sites at which the 'domains'---or cultural formations---of popular cultures and the law intersect and interpenetrate.