Obiter has just received details of a talk that US academic Kendall Thomas will be giving later this month at the University of Westminster about the controversial execution of American black lesbian Wanda Jean Allen in 2001. Apparently, it is the 'rationalist' basis of the arguments against the use of the death penalty in the US that limits their efficacy. Professor Thomas 'will show that an effective critique must incorporate both legal and cultural analyses and will propose an interpretive framework that actively draws on critical race theory, queer theory, and the psychoanalysis of political formations to provide a much fuller understanding of capital punishment'. Er, if you say so. Dr Oliver Phillips, reader in law at Westminster, helpfully adds: 'Professor Thomas carries out an effective critique of its cultural dimensions by making plain the role of the death penalty in producing a frame of enjoyment, through the fetishisation of race and sex, that is central to the making of political identity and subjectivity in contemporary USA.' No doubt president George W Bush (right) - who in his six years as governor of Texas presided over a record 152 executions - will now be persuaded to introduce a countrywide ban with immediate effect.