Chairs
• Jonathan Hafetz (Seton Hall Law School)
• Mara Malagodi (Warwick Law School)
• Giuseppe Martinico (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa)

This panel aims to explore how popular culture—through films, television series, comics, manga, and anime—represents, critiques, and reimagines constitutional values, institutions, and dilemmas. The intersection between law and popular culture is increasingly recognised as fertile ground for understanding how legal concepts travel beyond formal institutions and become part of the public imagination. In a world of shifting political, environmental, and technological landscapes, pop culture often anticipates or reflects societal tensions and aspirations surrounding constitutionalism, rights, and the role of the State. The workshop will bring together scholars working at the intersection of law, media studies, and constitutional theory to examine how constitutional ideas such as the separation of powers, human rights, the Rule of Law, and emergency powers are portrayed and problematised in fictional narratives. In line with the Congress theme, the panel will also reflect on how pop culture engages with notions of sustainability—political, social, and ecological—and with the possibility of constitutional renewal in the face of global crises.

Objectives

• Investigate the role of popular culture in shaping public perceptions of constitutional law.

• Analyse how fictional representations of constitutional collapse, dystopias, or alternative forms of government reflect real-world constitutional concerns.

• Assess whether popular media can be understood as a form of constitutional critique.

Topics of Interest

Possible contributions may address topics such as (among others):

• Constitutional dystopias and the collapse of democratic institutions.

• Emergency powers and authoritarianism in science fiction and fantasy.

• The judiciary and trials in popular media.

• Constitutional identity and multiculturalism in global popular culture.

• Gender, race, and intersectionality in legal storytelling and constitutional representation.

• Popular constitutional imaginaries in superhero narratives.

• Environmental constitutionalism in post-apocalyptic media.