Examining the inherent spatiality of law, both theoretically and as social practice, this book presents a genealogical account of the emergence and the development of the juridical. In an analysis that stretches from ancient Greece, through late antiquity and early modern and modern Europe, and on to the contemporary courtroom, it considers legal and philosophical texts, artistic and literary works, as well as judicial practices, in order to elicit and document a series of critical moments in the history of juridical space. Offering a more nuanced understanding of law than that found in traditional philosophical, political or social accounts of legal history, Dahlberg forges a critical account of the intimate relations between law and politics that shows how juridical space is determined and conditioned in ways that are integral to the very functioning – and malfunctioning – of law.
Introduction Spacing Law and Politics 1. Emotional Tropes in the Courtroom. On representation of affect and emotion in legal court proceedings 2. Achilles’ Wrath and the Law: Juridical Space(s), Striated and Smooth 3. Before the Temple of Justice: Reading Roman Law Reading 4. Factoring out Justice: Imaginaries of Community, Law, and the Political in Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Niccolò Machiavelli 5. The Spaces of Venice. Reading and Performing the Law in/of The Merchant of Venice 6. Mapping the Law of Strasbourg. Reading Old Maps of Strasbourg as Constituting Juridical Space and Representing Judicial Places 7. A Modern Trial. A Study of the Use of Video-Recorded Testimonies in the Swedish Court of Appeal and of Its Effects on Social Interaction and the Constitution of Judicial Space Concluding remarks. Becoming-Juridical
Leif Dahlberg is professor in Communication at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, and associate professor in Comparative Literature, Stockholm University, Sweden.
