Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway?
-
François Ost
Abstract
“Representation crisis” is certainly an expression that is too imprecise, clichéd and all-embracing: of little use. However, we have to recognize that the theatrical and literary experiments that shook the classical notion of representation in the twentieth century have been fruitful, not only in the arts, but also in terms of their repercussions in the human sciences. Law is no exception to this. On the contrary, its eminently representative nature benefits from being examined in the mirror of the critical experiments provided by fiction. This is, in a very condensed form, the initial postulate that will underpin our hypothesis, which will consist in showing the usefulness of investigating the notion of representation in law through art and literary theory, as well as through examples drawn from concrete theatrical and fictional works, owing to the light theatre and fiction can shed on the fragile balance, the “representational” razor, on which the law rests.
©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Shakespeare and the Law
- Weak Kings and Perverted Symbolism. How Shakespeare Treats the Doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies
- Free Will and Folly in As You Like It
- Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
- Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John, Othello & King Lear
- Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
- Research
- Illegal Search and Seizure, Due Process, and the Rights of the Accused: The Voices of Power in the Rhetoric of Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker
- The Judge’s Voice: Literary and Legal Emblemata
- Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence
- Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
- Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
- Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout
- Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway?
- Book Reviews
- Gary Watt: Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form
- José Calvo González: Direito curvo
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Shakespeare and the Law
- Weak Kings and Perverted Symbolism. How Shakespeare Treats the Doctrine of the King’s Two Bodies
- Free Will and Folly in As You Like It
- Romeo and Juliet: The Importance of a Name
- Unreliable Sources for Law: Dying Declarations in Shakespeare’s King John, Othello & King Lear
- Disruptions and Negotiations of Identity in Act 1 of Shakespeare’s Othello
- Research
- Illegal Search and Seizure, Due Process, and the Rights of the Accused: The Voices of Power in the Rhetoric of Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker
- The Judge’s Voice: Literary and Legal Emblemata
- Power and the Trial: The Tension Between Voices and Silence
- Voice, Authority and the Law in Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
- Silence, Power and Suicide in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
- Celsus and Chatwin go Walkabout
- Representing the Unrepresentable: Making Law Anyway?
- Book Reviews
- Gary Watt: Dress, Law and Naked Truth. A Cultural Study of Fashion and Form
- José Calvo González: Direito curvo
