Edward Mussawir – författare

To what extent can an animal constitute a ‘juridical species’? This highly original book considers how animals have been integral to law and to legal thinking.

Going beyond the traditional approaches to animal rights and the question of whether non-human animals may be considered legal ‘subjects,’ this book follows two types of animal – bears and bees – and asks what existence these species have maintained in juridical thought. Uncovering surprising roles that the animals play in the imagination of and solution to jurisprudential problems, the book offers a counter-argument to the view that juridical thought reduces one’s appreciation for the singularity and independence of their lives. It shows, rather, that the animals exert a remarkable influence on the creative dimensions of law, offering a liveliness to it that is worthy of close attention.

Contributing to new directions at the intersection of jurisprudence and human–animal studies, this book will appeal to those with interests in either of these areas.

To what extent can an animal constitute a ‘juridical species’? This highly original book considers how animals have been integral to law and to legal thinking.

Going beyond the traditional approaches to animal rights and the question of whether non-human animals may be considered legal ‘subjects,’ this book follows two types of animal – bears and bees – and asks what existence these species have maintained in juridical thought. Uncovering surprising roles that the animals play in the imagination of and solution to jurisprudential problems, the book offers a counter-argument to the view that juridical thought reduces one’s appreciation for the singularity and independence of their lives. It shows, rather, that the animals exert a remarkable influence on the creative dimensions of law, offering a liveliness to it that is worthy of close attention.

Contributing to new directions at the intersection of jurisprudence and human–animal studies, this book will appeal to those with interests in either of these areas.

This book addresses the problem of ‘animal life’ in terms that go beyond the usual extension of liberal rights to animals. The discourse of animal rights is one that increasingly occupies the political, ethical and intellectual terrain of modern society. But, although the question of the status of animals holds an important place within a range of civil, political and technological disciplines, the issue of rights in relation to animals usually rehearses the familiar perspectives of legal, moral and humanist philosophy. ‘Animal law’ is fast becoming a topic of significant contemporary interest and discussion. This burgeoning interest has not, however, been matched by renewed inquiry into the jurisprudential frames and methods for the treatment of animals in law, nor the philosophical issue of the ‘human’ and the ‘animal’ that lies at law’s foundation. Responding to this interest, Law and the Question of the Animal: A Critical Jurisprudence brings together leading and emerging critical legal theorists to address the question of animality in relation to law’s foundations, practices and traditions of thought. In so doing, it engages a surprisingly underdeveloped aspect of the moral philosophies of animal rights, namely their juridical register and existence. How does ‘animal law’ alter our juridical image of personality or personhood? How do the technologies of law intersect with the technologies that invent, create and manage animal life? And how might the ethical, ontological and ceremonial relation between humans and animals be linked to a common source or experience of law?

This book addresses the problem of ‘animal life’ in terms that go beyond the usual extension of liberal rights to animals. The discourse of animal rights is one that increasingly occupies the political, ethical and intellectual terrain of modern society. But, although the question of the status of animals holds an important place within a range of civil, political and technological disciplines, the issue of rights in relation to animals usually rehearses the familiar perspectives of legal, moral and humanist philosophy. ‘Animal law’ is fast becoming a topic of significant contemporary interest and discussion. This burgeoning interest has not, however, been matched by renewed inquiry into the jurisprudential frames and methods for the treatment of animals in law, nor the philosophical issue of the ‘human’ and the ‘animal’ that lies at law’s foundation. Responding to this interest, Law and the Question of the Animal: A Critical Jurisprudence brings together leading and emerging critical legal theorists to address the question of animality in relation to law’s foundations, practices and traditions of thought. In so doing, it engages a surprisingly underdeveloped aspect of the moral philosophies of animal rights, namely their juridical register and existence. How does ‘animal law’ alter our juridical image of personality or personhood? How do the technologies of law intersect with the technologies that invent, create and manage animal life? And how might the ethical, ontological and ceremonial relation between humans and animals be linked to a common source or experience of law?

Jurisdiction in Deleuze: The Expression and Representation of Law explores an affinity between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and jurisprudence as a tradition of technical legal thought. The author addresses and reopens a central aesthetic problem in jurisprudence: the difference between the expression and the representation of law. Deleuze is taken as offering not just an important methodological recovery of an ‘expressionism’ in philosophy – specifically through Nietzsche and Spinoza – but also a surprisingly practical jurisprudence which recasts the major technical terms of jurisdiction (persons, things and actions) in terms of their distinctively expressive or performative modalities. In paying attention to law’s expression, Deleuze is thus shown to offer an account of how meaning may attach to the instrument and medium of law and how legal desire may be registered within the texture and technology of jurisdiction.

Contributing both to a renewed transposition of Deleuze into contemporary legal theory, as well as to an emerging interest in law’s technology, institution and instrumentality in critical legal studies, Jurisdiction in Deleuze will be of considerable interest.

Jurisdiction in Deleuze: The Expression and Representation of Law explores an affinity between the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and jurisprudence as a tradition of technical legal thought. The author addresses and reopens a central aesthetic problem in jurisprudence: the difference between the expression and the representation of law. Deleuze is taken as offering not just an important methodological recovery of an ‘expressionism’ in philosophy – specifically through Nietzsche and Spinoza – but also a surprisingly practical jurisprudence which recasts the major technical terms of jurisdiction (persons, things and actions) in terms of their distinctively expressive or performative modalities. In paying attention to law’s expression, Deleuze is thus shown to offer an account of how meaning may attach to the instrument and medium of law and how legal desire may be registered within the texture and technology of jurisdiction.

Contributing both to a renewed transposition of Deleuze into contemporary legal theory, as well as to an emerging interest in law’s technology, institution and instrumentality in critical legal studies, Jurisdiction in Deleuze will be of considerable interest.