Scholarship You Can Dance To

This post by Nate Oman reminds me of a conversation at last weekend’s works-in-progress IP colloquium at Wash. U. A group of us in St. Louis were inspired by Mark Schultz’s description of what he listened to while he worked up his forthcoming paper on jambands.

The result was this:

What if law review articles came with soundtracks? Or — easier — listening recommendations, like “Play Dark Side of the Moon while watching Star Wars.” Sync the music to section headings, sub-headings, thesis statements, and illustrations, graphs, and figures — or even well-placed footnotes.

There are some obvious combinations. Mark Schultz’s piece gets accompanied by live Grateful Dead tracks, naturally. Pick your favorite Lessig article, and cue up Wilco.

Naturally, and barring unexpected copyright impediments, I expect that this would likely lead to an explosion of law review article podcasts — a hitherto under-developed secondary market for scholarly literature. And the remix possibilities — let your imagination run wild.

(Post title and other inspiration courtesy of Wes “Scoop” Nisker)