University of Massachusetts Press Law and Performance (The Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought)

Drawing on the rich field of performance studies, this volume, the most recent contribution to the distinguished Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, offers fresh insights and a provocative mix of multidisciplinary topics and methodologies to explore the theatricality and performativity of law as more than a metaphor.In considering law through the lens of performance studies, the contributors in this volume emphasize the embodied, affective, and reiterative qualities that move law off the printed page and into the thick world of lived experience. They consider the blurring of lines between performance and the enactment of law, the transformative exchanges between the law and its many and varied stagings, and the impact or resonance of performativity in situations where innocence and guilt may be determined. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Joshua Chambers-Letson, Catherine M. Cole, Ryan Hartigan, Lara D. Nielsen, Julie Stone Peters, Ann Pellegrini, and Karen Shimakawa. Review Here is a pathbreaking law book that picks up on the emerging interest in affect theory, sensory studies (including forays in synesthesia studies) in conjunction with the cultural and political implications of law in action. It invites novel modes of analysis, and in the process brings into view previously unobserved phenomena pertaining to law, the perception of law, and law's efficacy and legitimation.--Richard K. Sherwin, author of When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line between Law and Popular Culture This collection is a must read for scholars of performance studies as well as legal studies researchers and practitioners.--CHOICE About the Author Austin Sarat is associate dean of the faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.Lawrence Douglas is James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College.Martha Merrill Umphrey is Bertrand H. Snell 1894 Professor in American Government and director of the Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College.