"Richard Roe is the fictional memoir of a legal person. The name is one of the oldest used in English law when the real name of someone is withheld, or when a corpse can't be identified. Richard Roe is a known unknown, a one-size-fits-all, a potentially everyone and actually no one. Divided into seven fragmentary sections, this memoir gives voice to the legal fictions that creep around the margins of selfhood--and that increasingly dictate the terms of economic and political process. It draws on numerous concepts of personhood from legal, psychological, linguistic, and metaphysical realms, including ancient Roman juridical theory; medieval writings on materialism; and arguments, of the last two centuries, for the legal personhood of corporations, rivers, and other elements of the natural world"--Publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.