ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|33 pages

Emotional tropes in the courtroom

On display and representation of affect and emotion in court proceedings

chapter 2|24 pages

Achilles' wrath and the law

Juridical space(s), striated and smooth

chapter 3|19 pages

Before the temple of justice

Reading Roman law reading

chapter 4|38 pages

Factoring out justice

Imaginaries of community, law and the political in Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Niccolò Machiavelli

chapter 5|20 pages

The juridical spaces of Venice

Reading and performing the law in/of The Merchant of Venice

chapter 6|43 pages

Mapping the law

Reading old maps of Strasbourg as constituting juridical space and representing judicial places

chapter 7|41 pages

A modern trial

A study of the use of video-recorded testimony in the Swedish court of appeal and of its effects on social interaction and the constitution of judicial space

chapter |16 pages

Concluding remarks

On becoming juridical