Volume 19, Issue 1 - Focus: Law and Literature in the Era of the Digital Condition

The essay takes the construction of the legal subject within personalized law as an impetus to outline the development of legal subjectivity in the postmodern era. The various discourses that produce norms and knowledge, and finally the subject itself, are particularly evident here. By placing these construction processes within the framework of extra-legal discourses, with particular reference to the mechanisms of online marketing, we learn that in the context of both personalized law and online marketing, individuals are no longer perceived as predefined entities, but rather as a result of performative acts of compositional possibilities. Just as online marketing creates consumers based on their detailed online behavior, personalized law aims to tailor legal norms to individuals by creating a digital (dividual) subject through computerized analysis of distinct data nodes. Finally, these insights also allow conclusions to be drawn about the individual nature of the modern subject in modern law and its entanglement in extra-legal discourses.

Online interactions today are increasingly hostile spaces designed to hyper stimulate, driven by instantaneous methods of gratification, all while sharing polarising opinions in snapshot attention spans. That the spaces occupying so much of our time and energy have become polarised, extreme, and hostile creates a vicious circle of consumption, intolerance, and violence. Ultimately, the ease with which digital spaces foster violence, aggression, and intolerance has created – what this paper argues – is a new digital condition of online violence as a cultural habit. The first part of this paper discusses the condition of online and digital violence, against the backdrop of an increasingly digital society. This discussion emphasises that the more interactions that take place online, the greater the chances that there is a direct experience of online violence, even if this is directed generally at online audiences, or witnessed as a bystander. In exploring this, the wider argument advanced here is that these experiences have become normalised across a wide intersection of digital and cultural interactions and are not limited to one form of media, nor one form of consumption. The second part of this essay undertakes a broader discussion of the types of online violence that presents as a new digital condition. Through such an exploration, this paper outlines that the new cultural norm is one of violence, and in online spaces, of online violence. What becomes particularly evident in exploring the concept of generalized violence – introduced in this essay – through online cultural forms of engagement is the proliferation of online violence across online platforms, social media networks, and digital interactions. And yet, despite this, the turn towards legally capturing and addressing online harms, particularly within the EU and the UK, does not, conceptualise this digital condition of violence in meaningful ways. This omission is one that has so far failed to generate appropriate regulation. In sum, this paper argues that law and society stands at a crossroads, faced with the onslaught of online violence as a new digital condition, but remains directionless as to how to challenge it. This paper argues that online violence, including online violence against women, is our new digital condition – and it has become an embedded norm to such an extent that it is a new cultural habit, and we are all conditioned to see it, hear it, experience it, and perpetrate it.

The article explores the dynamic intersection of poetics and democratic deliberation in the digital environment, offering a special focus on the role and potential of the child (online) deliberator. Despite significant advances in deliberative democracy, especially in online contexts, the concept of deliberative poetics, and its implications for children’s online engagement remains under-developed. The article advocates for the reimagining of online deliberative processes in a manner that supports child-driven deliberative poetics, as well as aligns with the aims of deliberative processes, leverages the unique advantages of the digital environment, and enables the meaningful engagement children. Drawing on the insights gained from children’s experiences with video-conferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the article offers key recommendations for designing child-centered video-conference-facilitated deliberative processes and proposes the establishment of a designated digital hub for children’s participation and deliberation. These initiatives aim to enhance children’s engagement in online democratic deliberations, and maximize their potential in terms of poetic, technological, and policy outcomes.

This article examines the essential difference between a hearing held in a court, physically attended by the parties and their lawyers, and a hearing held through Video Conferencing Platforms (VCPs) VCP. The premise pursued here is that virtual hearing lacks an important quality of the trial as a cultural phenomenon – cohesive distinctiveness . The poetics of the virtual hearing relies on such a different concept of space and time that it produces not an approximation of the traditional court hearing, but as a simulacrum, which undermines important elements of the legal hearing, and deprives it of its unique cultural power and function. The paper concludes with enhancing the necessity of a new digital poetics of law through which the cohesive distinctiveness of the legal process will not be reduced, but reimagined.

This article explores the intricate relationship between humanism, digital technology, and human rights, emphasizing the importance of ethical, social, and cultural considerations alongside technical expertise in navigating the digital age. Rooted in Renaissance ideals of human dignity and self-determination, it argues that access to digital tools constitutes a fundamental right of citizenship, essential for meaningful participation in a globally connected society. Initiatives like Uruguay’s Ceibal program exemplify efforts to democratize technology, revealing both successes and persistent challenges in ensuring digital inclusion and equitable access. The role of the digital humanist is highlighted as a crucial intermediary, merging technological insight with ethical reflection to safeguard human autonomy and dignity in the face of rapid innovation. The article underscores the importance of advocating for a rethinking of cultural paradigms to prioritize human dignity and self-determination in technological integration rather than relying on technology to safeguard humanity from itself (see the “human in the loop”). This approach calls for a reflective and responsible framework that aligns technological advancement with the principles of equity, inclusion, and human flourishing. The potential of digital storytelling and electronic literature, including examples like We Are Fragmented , Voz Pública , and Priya’s Shakti , is explored as a means to amplify marginalized voices and foster empathy, demonstrating how technology can be harnessed for the advancement of human rights. These narratives illustrate how digital tools can contribute to cultural and ethical enrichment rather than alienation, challenging society to rethink foundational concepts like authorship, responsibility, and authenticity.

This article explores two distinct models of faith: the Jewish concept of emunah and the Greek concept of pistis as used by Saint Paul. It examines the theological, legal, and political implications of the shift from emunah to pistis during the nascent phase of Christianity within the Western diaspora. The transition from emunah to pistis has profound implications. It redefines the relationship between humanity, the divine and the law. The law ceases to be the path to salvation; indeed, the end of the law is what allows faith to be the access to salvation. Politically, the spread of Christianity within the diaspora introduced a new dimension to religious and social identity. The use of Greek and the concept of pistis helped Paul communicate the Christian message to a broader Hellenistic audience, facilitating the spread of Christianity as a universal faith, but it left an essential ambiguity regarding the very terms of Faith and Lordship. This ambiguity characterizes the relationship between Faith and Law in much of Western thought. This article seeks to analyse the layers of this original ambiguity as a characteristic of Western legal and political thought. It concludes that this ambiguity in the terms of Faith and Lordship has deeply influenced the development of Western doctrines, continuously shaping the interplay between Faith and Law throughout history.

The essay explores the themes of linguistic manipulation and power as portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), drawing connections with contemporary discourse on disinformation and political language. Through the lens of Teun A. Van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis and Michel Foucault’s concept of panopticism, the study examines Orwell’s depiction of a dystopian society where language serves as a central tool for consolidating totalitarian power. In particular, the fictional language of Newspeak is analyzed as an instrument designed to restrict critical thought, aligning with Orwell’s broader critique of language manipulation as a mechanism of cognitive and societal control. By exploring the intersections of language, power, and social structure, this essay highlights how Orwell’s warnings remain relevant in today’s world of pervasive digital disinformation and propaganda, underscoring the importance of safeguarding linguistic integrity as a defense of independent thought.

The essay investigates the intricate relationship between legal and cultural concepts of property and ownership in 19th-century American historical novels, specifically in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers (1823) and Catherine Maria Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie (1827). By examining the various meanings of the term ‘property’ – ranging from tangible ownership to the intrinsic qualities of objects but also texts and even ideas – the author argues that discourses on land and literature as property in 19th-century U.S.-America embody competing claims that reflect broader societal tensions and cultural struggles. Cooper’s narrative emphasizes a legalistic framework, presenting property rights as rooted in colonial appropriation and entitlement and genealogical continuity. In contrast, Sedgwick’s work questions these established notions by foregrounding themes of disruption and dispossession, illustrating how cultural narratives challenge patriarchal norms surrounding ownership and cultural superiority. Her portrayal of characters navigating conflicting legal landscapes reveals a more complex understanding of possession and self-possession, one that prioritizes individual autonomy and ethical considerations over mere legal entitlement. By weaving together these legal and cultural strands, the essay asserts that Sedgwick’s literary approach proposes a redefinition of property that values diverse perspectives and multiplicity in narrating history. Ultimately, the study underscores the interplay between legal frameworks and cultural narratives, illustrating how both land and literature serve as sites of contested ownership and identity in the struggle for representation and understanding in 19th-century U.S.-American culture.

Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest and wealthiest city, serves as a significant site for exploring the challenges and complexities of the post-apartheid nation. As a stage for both violence and hope, it embodies the fractured ideals of reconciliation in a nation still trying to come to terms with its apartheid past. This article examines how Johannesburg functions as both a legal and literary metaphor for justice and its limits in the postcolonial context. Law and literature scholars such as Robert Cover have highlighted how narratives bridge the gap between legal codes and lived realities, offering alternative perspectives on justice and social repair. Johannesburg, as portrayed in Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit (2001), Phaswane Mpe’s Welcome to Our Hillbrow (2001), as well as Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun (1998) and No Time Like the Present (2012), operates as more than a physical space; it becomes an interpretive mirror through which the possibilities and failures of law in post-apartheid South Africa are refracted. Johannesburg’s cityscape emerges as a juridical space reflecting the contradictions of reconciliation and the legal infrastructure sustaining it. Its roads, neighbourhoods, and public spaces both challenge racial and class divides and perpetuate systemic inequalities rooted in apartheid-era legal frameworks. These literary representations prompt critical questions, i.e., whether Johannesburg’s urban fabric can mend its historical fractures, or if it remains ensnared by the discriminatory ideologies of its past. By foregrounding lawt and literature’s shared focus on justice, this contribution argues that Dangor, Mpe, and Gordimer offer essential insights into how postcolonial urban spaces negotiate the interplay between violence, memory, and the pursuit of reconciliation.

This essay offers a close reading of the female protagonist Natsuko’s account of childbirth in Kawakami Mieko’s Breasts and Eggs . It proceeds from scrutinizing a particular scene featuring a contradiction between the setting of hallucination and the agential implication to unfolding a non-normative reproductive desire that objectifies and fantasizes an outside to modernity. In my analysis of the scene featuring hallucination, I will argue that the contradiction in the hallucination marks the coming-into-being of a subjective I that emerges at the limit of the efficacy of the Law of the Father and the Law of the West. In the subsequent analysis where I unfold what type of I is being reproduced, I argue that fantasizing an outside to modernity smoothes out contradiction inherent in modernity. As manifest in Natsuko’s account of childbirth, the outside-ness she fantasizes and objectifies in the father she chooses for her child is reproduced in the child as extra-planetary in her imagination.

Law’s stories and images migrate from the courtroom to the filmic and television screen, as well as to the screen of the mass media. Our visual legal imagination at the same time adjust and is determined by the demands and the modalities of new communication technologies. Within this context, Luke Delaney’s novel The Jackdaw (2015) presents a criminal trial as a completely mediatized spectacle, thus positing a new sublimity of the law that puts into question the legal institution itself and brings to the surface the constitution of a distorted digital body politic.