Art as an Interface of Law and Justice

Frans-Willem Korsten holds the chair in 'Literature and Society' at the Erasmus School of Philosophy and is working at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society in the Netherlands.

A thought-provoking and well-considered book that builds toward a general theory of law and justice but that is also able to include in-depth analyses of multiple different literary/artistic works that span genres.

• 1. Art as the Interface of Law and Justice: From Annoyance to an Ethics of Affirmation I. Law – Justice and Art as Interface II. System, Realm and Two Kinds of Logic: Affirmation and DisturbanceIII. ‘Thirds’: Forces of Disruption and Impasse IV. In Defence of Law, as a Defence of Justice V. Art, Annoyance and an Ethics of Affirmation 2. Logic of Fear vs Logic of Desire: Milo Rau’s The Congo Tribunal and the Care for Law I. Absent Rule of Law and the Potential in Art’s Interface II. Law’s Genesis, Fear of Law and the Nature of Courts III. Apathy: The Threat to Law and Justice IV. Theatre and Drama: Dunamis and the Judicial Mise-en-scene V. The Care for Law: Jurisannihilatio and Juriscaritas 3. Logic of Tragedy vs Logic of Comedy: Elfriede Jelinek’s Ulrike Maria Stuart and Princess-dramas: Death and the Maiden I. Open or Closed: Tragedy, Comedy, Impasse II. Culture-text and the Cohabitation of Symbolic Order and Law III. Mary Stuart and Ulrike Meinhof: Law’s Domesticity and Mystery IV. The Weight of Law’s Architectonic: Sovereignty 4. Logic of the Official vs Logic of the Officious: The Force in Form and Forum in Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends and Lost Children Archive I. Officious: Meddlesome, Informal, Obliging, Passionate II. Data Subjects: Records, Documents and Form III. Öffentlichkeit, Publicity and Forum IV. The Destructive Fictitious and the Test of Fiction: Forensic Architecture 5. Logic of Personhood vs Logic of Self: Threat of Packs in Vondel’s ‘Water-wolf’ and the Shift of Commons into Property I. Personhood, Self, Pack and the Legal Need for Dissection II. The Art of Mapping: From Centralisation to Ecological Territorialisation III. Waters as Wolf Packs: Tropes of Infuriation IV. The Veil of Irresponsibility, New Persons, New Selves 6. Logic of Completion vs Logic of Antinomy: Corruption and Well-being from Marek Hlasko, to Chibundu Onuzo, to the American Suburban Grass Turf and Fritz Haeg I. Corruption, Law’s Completion and Antinomy II. ‘It’s Not Me’: A Culture of Corruption III. Functional Corruption and the Proper IV. Corruption in an Ecological Context: Needs for an Antinomian Response 7. Logic of Violence vs Logic of Empathy: Justice and Law in Chiasmus through George Eliot’s Daniel DerondaI. The Political in Justice: Interests and Just Law II. Two Modes of Wilfulness and the Chiasmus of Law and Justice III. Obliviousness and the Grey Area between Law and Justice IV. Divisive Empathy, Cohesive Violence 8. Logic of Reason vs Logic of Dream: Epistemic Authority, Habeas Corpus, Hallucination – Nicholas Refn’sOnly God Forgives I. Reason, Dream and Disruptive Hallucination II. Epistemic Authority and Deviant Investigators in Times of Multiple Insurgencies III. Habeas Corpus: Historical Struggles for a Common Ground IV. Familiar Orders and Current Unchecked Powers