韩国裸舞

Abstract

If you squint a bit at the French word maladroit (translated into English as 鈥渃lumsy鈥�) it can look like you are saying (in French) 鈥渂ad at law.鈥� This seems like it would be a very bad thing indeed since we tend to think of the law as something that we want to only ever be good.

Yet,Professor Martel will be arguing that law is at it鈥檚 best when it is at its worst (most clumsy). This is because the law is constituted by an impossible tension between what it purports to be (just, neutral, fair) and the way that it actually manifests itself in the world (unjust, violent, discriminatory).

In many ways this disjunction comes from the fact that law is by design an anxious self positing force that does not have the ontological origins and duties that it claims. Thus, it is in fact when law performs 鈥渨ell鈥� that it is in fact at it鈥檚 worst. Law in this mode kills and punishes, it asserts its own existence by denying that of others.

It is when law is bad at itself (鈥渕aladroit鈥�) that we can see another side of it. A clumsy law is one that allows for its own imperfection and, in that way, for the human and humane acts that are often performed in the name of the law but actually run contrary to the mission of the law.

Here, law is capable of being non or anti violent and comes closer to being what it pretends to be (but never is on its own terms). I will discuss these ideas with reference to Kafka, Benjamin and Cavarero.聽

Bio

For the second conference, we welcome James Martel, Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University. James Martel teaches political theory in the Department of Political Science at San Francisco State University. He is the author, most recently, of "Anarchist Prophets: Disappointing Vision and the Power of Collective Sight" (Duke University Press, 2022); "Unburied Bodies: Subversive Corpses and the Authority of the Dead" (Amherst College Press, 2018); and "The Misinterpellated Subject" (Duke University Press, 2017).

He is currently working on two new book projects: "Continuous Assembly: The Power and Promise of Non Archism" and "Eat the Administration!" Co-authored with Blanca Miss茅.