NCJ Number
140181
Editor(s)
A Sarat,
T R Kearns
Date Published
1992
Length
267 pages
Annotation
Each essay in this volume considers the question of how violence perpetrated by and in the name of the law differs from illegal or extralegal violence.
Abstract
Each author draws on a distinctive disciplinary tradition, such as literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, political science, or law, to discuss the problems and prospects of law in the late 20th century. The essays pay particular attention to the impact of broad intellectual and political movements, especially feminism and postmodernism, on law and legal theory. While each essay addresses law and violence in its own way, each implicitly recognizes relations of necessity and possibility between law and violence. The essays serve to remind that law's violent constitution does not end with the establishment of legal order. The editors hope that the essays will contribute to finding the resources of understanding that will allow effective opposition to excess while encouraging an accurate perception of the necessity of law's reliance on force. Footnotes