Deconstructing Law and Society: A Sociolegal Aesthetics

Abstract

Handler's genealogy of postmodernism recounted in his address recognizes its origin in aesthetic disciplines and its somewhat viral transcription into social jurisprudence: “the postmodern concept of subversion developed first in language and literary theory, art, and architecture and then spread into politics and law” (1992a, p. 698). Although Handler's rejection of deconstruction stems from what he sees to be its political quiescence, its association with aesthetic critiques of modernism haunts his claims as one source of its essential conservatism. Aesthetic values, he implies, remain distant or distinct from pressing issues of political and social inequality.

Citation

Goldberg-Hiller, J. (2007), "Deconstructing Law and Society: A Sociolegal Aesthetics", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue Law and Society Reconsidered (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 41), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(07)00004-X