Justice, Law, and the Educative Power: Revisiting ‘Force of Law’

Derrida Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-206
Author(s):  
Gabriel Quigley
Keyword(s):  
The Future ◽  
Divine Violence ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Critique Of Violence

This paper examines Jacques Derrida's analysis of Walter Benjamin's ‘Critique of Violence’ in the context of their respective theories of the university. Whereas Derrida foregrounds the complex ways that the university and law are intertwined, Benjamin claims that the ‘educative power’ stands removed from the law by identifying the university with ‘divine violence’. ‘Force of Law’ not only questions the possibility of a neutral, pre-legal space that Benjamin's theory warrants, ‘Force of Law’ also draws attention to the laws structuring the colloquia that gave rise to Derrida's text. This paper claims that Derrida's analysis of justice, law, violence, and justesse is thus informed by a theory of the university, and that the ways in which Derrida's theory of law stands opposed to Benjamin's parallels the ways in which Derrida's theory of the university questions Benjamin's understanding of the ‘educative power’. This paper concludes by drawing attention to the demand posed by the absence of justice in the academy. Although the laws of the academy produce justesse in the present, this negatively affirms justice in the future, which cannot wait.

The future of labour law in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Labour Law ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Lecture Series ◽  
Law Faculty ◽  
The World ◽  
Disciplinary Perspective ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Comparative ◽  
The University

This contribution contains the text of the first Roger Blanpain Lecture held at the Law Faculty of the University of Leuven on 8 May 2017. The Roger Blanpain Lecture Series aims to bring a renowned expert in the field of labour law and labour relations to the Law Faculty of the KU Leuven once per year. The idea is to stay close to the academic approach of professor Blanpain and the Institute for Labour Law, which implies the study of labour law from an international, comparative and cross-disciplinary perspective. The lecture aims to offer a ‘window to the world’ to our students and the Institute’s academic and professional partners as well as the wider public.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-192
Author(s):  
James Edward Ford
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Divine Violence ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
The Law ◽  
Critique Of Violence ◽  
General Strike

Notebook 3 continues to build on the concept of the multitude. Du Bois calls the region of the multitude that pursues truth and justice the “dark proletariat.” This chapter theorizes the dark proletariat’s revolutionary force analyzing the argument and form of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, especially the chapters on “The General Strike” and “The Coming of the Lord.” With this analysis, Du Bois’s account of the dark proletariat during the Civil War marks the historical expression of the divine violence Walter Benjamin identifies but cannot historically locate in his enigmatic essay “Critique of Violence.” Divine violence undoes the guilt that binds the oppressed to the law and State. While Benjamin sought his example among the working class in Europe’s metropoles, Du Bois makes the figure of the fugitive slave the protagonist of his narrative.

scholarly journals Forgotten? The Role of Graduate Legal Education in the Future of the Law Faculty

2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 761
Author(s):  
Rosalie Jukier ◽  
Kate Glover
Keyword(s):  
Legal Education ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Graduate Studies ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
Law Faculty ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University

In this article, the authors argue that the longstanding trend of excluding graduate studies in law from the discourse on legal education has detrimental effects on both the discourse and the future of the law faculty. More specifically, disregarding graduate legal education is at odds with the reality of graduate studies in Canadian law faculties today, ignores the challenges of graduate programs in law, and perpetuates inaccurate distinctions about both the career aspirations of law students and the relationship between undergraduate and graduate legal studies. In the authors’ view, these concerns can be overcome by reframing the discourse. Once the purpose of legal education is understood to be the cultivation of jurists and the law faculty is seen as an integrated whole of people, place, and program, graduate legal education moves easily into the discussion on the future of the law faculty. Including graduate studies in the discourse is an opportunity to explore, and be hopeful about, the institutional missions of law faculties and their place in the university, the optimization of legal education at all levels, and the methods by which participants in graduate studies should fulfill their responsibilities to the future of the discipline.

scholarly journals Derrida’s Kafka and the Imagined Boundary of Legal Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 540-566
Author(s):  
William E. Conklin
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Bounded Space ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University

This article raises the critical issue as to why there has been assumed to be a boundary to legal knowledge. In response to such an issue I focus upon the works of Jacques Derrida who, amongst other things, was concerned with the boundary of the disciplines of Literature, Philosophy and Law. The article argues that the boundary delimits the law as if the inside of a boundary to territorial-like legal space in legal consciousness. Such a space is not possible without the boundary. Derrida’s most insightful essay in this regard is his study of Franz Kafka’s untitled parable in The Trial. The parable represents a man who waits for an invitation to enter the Law until he nears his end. Derrida responds to the parable in his essay, “Before the Law.” This article uses the parable and Derrida’s response to it as a starting-off point for a reconsideration of the boundary of legal knowledge. In this context, Derrida asks this question: “why is Kafka’s parable categorized as Literature or Law?” Such an issue depends upon the boundary of a discipline, according to Derrida. And that focus, in turn, asks whether the boundary pre-exists any text which is represented as “Literature” or “Law” or “Philosophy.” This article claims, however, that Derrida’s theory presupposes that law, as a discipline, encloses a territorial-like space in legal consciousness. Each discipline possesses such a space. So too does the state and the university. Inside this bounded space, officials of the Law are free to consciously deliberate, reflect, and render decisions about the context of the Law. Analytically and phenomenologically before the boundary is taken for granted in an academic discipline, however, there is an unbounded non-law. The aporia of Derrida’s theory of the boundary of the Law is that the official or expert knower of the official language inside the boundary cannot assume the imagined boundary of legal knowledge without implicitly claiming to know the exteriority to the boundary. And yet, officials and expert knowers cannot know such an exterior extra-legality because, by virtue of the boundary as encircling a territorial-like space, knowledge is considered legal only when it exists inside the boundary. “The Law” is the consequence of the imagination of the expert knowers of the language as well as of the non-expert who believes in the bounded territorial-like space.

On the Artifactual—and Natural— Character of Legal Institutions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrado Roversi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law

Are legal institutions artifacts? If artifacts are conceived as entities whose existence depends on human beings, then yes, legal institutions are, of course, artifacts. But an artifact theory of law makes a stronger claim, namely, that there is actually an explanatory gain to be had by investigating legal institutions as artifacts, or through the features of ordinary artifacts. This is the proposition explored in this chapter: that while this understanding of legal institutions makes it possible to find common ground between legal positivism and legal realism, it does not capture all of the insights offered by these two traditions. An artifact theory of law can therefore be necessary in explaining the law, but it will not suffice to that end. This chapter also posits that legal artifacts bear a relevant connection to certain conceptions of nature, thus vindicating one of the original insights behind natural law theory.

Reorganization of the Governmental Structure of Roumania

1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 700-703
Author(s):  
Joseph S. Roucek
Keyword(s):  
Central Administration ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Law ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The University

The law for the reorganization of central administration and the law on local administration (July 20, 1929) sponsored by the National Peasant government of Roumania have recently been put into effect. Both measures were drafted by Professors Negulescu, of the University of Bucharest, and Alexianu, of the University of Cernauţi. Their adoption comprises one of the most thorough governmental reforms in the history of the Balkans.The structure of the Roumanian government was, until very recently, almost completely copied from the French system. Roumania was a typical example of a unitary organization. The whole power of government was centralized in Bucharest. Practically all powers of local government were derived from the central authority, and were enlarged and contracted at the will of Bucharest. The whole system lent itself admirably to the domination of the National Liberal party, guided up to 1927 by Ion I. C. Brǎtianu, and after his death by his brother, Vintilǎ I. C. Brǎtianu, who died last year.Since the strength of the National Peasant party, which assumed the reins in 1928, lies largely in the provinces acquired at the close of the World War, a decentralization of government was to be expected. The bitter resentment of Maniu and his associates toward the over-centralization which favored the policies of the Bratianus forced the recent overhauling of the governmental structure, tending toward federalism—a form which takes cognizance of the differences of the past and present between the old kingdom and the new provinces and attempts to extend democratic features of self-rule to the electorate. At the same time, it attempts to secure bureaucratic expertness.

Not a “Nonissue”: Perceptions and Realities of Campus Carry at The University of Texas at Austin

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
SAMPO RUOPPILA ◽  
ALBION M. BUTTERS
Keyword(s):  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Campus Life ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University

As a publicly funded institution,The University of Texas at Austin had to implement the state's legislation to allow concealed handguns on campus. Yet its own Campus Carry policy has sought to erase the matter from everyday campus life. The administration deems it a “nonissue,” presuming that students have become accustomed to the idea, do not think about it actively, and have a low interest in acquiring a handgun license. This paper, based on a survey of the university's undergraduates, questions these ideas. It shows that a majority of students think that the issue is important and examines in what sense the students are troubled by its effects. While opinions differ between supporters and opponents of Campus Carry, divergences also exist within their ranks, such as among supporters of the law regarding where guns should specifically be allowed at the university. On the basis of the survey, the essay also examines how many licensed carriers are actually on campus, compared to the university's estimates.

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