U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Constructing Justice: Theories of the Subject in Law and Literature

NCJ Number
140012
Journal
Minnesota Law Review Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Dated: (February 1991) Pages: 581- 598
Author(s)
B B Baker
Date Published
1991
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This essay explores the way that literature and the law address their human subjects, with emphasis on the works of Paul de Man, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Steve Fuller, and John Noonan, Jr.
Abstract
The discussion focuses on the relationship between literature and legal theory and practice and on whether that relationship affects the concept of the human "self" within the legal system. Noonan states that the central problem of the law is defining the relation of love to power. In contrast, Lyotard and de Man distinguish the living, breathing, empirical human subject from the ontological, discursive human subject and thereby diminish or remove the power of the empirical human subject in systems of discourse. They and Fuller seek structural understanding of certain discursive systems and are interested in the role of the human subject in developing the language that will affect it. Footnotes

Downloads

No download available

Availability