ABSTRACT
Since publication of the earliest known law review symposium in 1889, tens of thousands of symposia, colloquies, and special issues have been published. During the period 1980 to 1990 alone, almost 14,000 symposium articles were listed in commonly used legal databases. The symposium takes its name from the title of one of Plato's dialogues in which the poet Agathon gives a banquet to celebrate his victory in a drama contest. Symposium literally means "a drinking party; a convivial meeting for drinking, conversation, and intellectual entertainment." In Plato's Symposium, Pausanias suggests to the other guests, among them Aristophanes, Phaedrus, and Socrates, that they avoid heavy drinking and they agree. The subject matter distribution of 1,807 symposium issues in the eleven-year period is fascinating: In some respects it mirrors the social and legal issues that occupied national consciousness in the 1980s. Reaganism and Republican leadership focused considerable attention on federalism, federal courts, and state-law alternatives.
