Finding and Losing One's Self in the Topoi
Placing and Displacing the Postmodern Subject in Law
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5114884 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rosemary J Coombe (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 599-608 |
| Publication date | 1995-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Society Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3053913 |
| OpenAlex | W3125494762 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 9 |
The metaphors Santos (1995) affords us for orienting a postmodern subject no doubt emerge from a substantial body of empirical research and theoretical deliberation. Having only been provided with a very brief summary of his remarks upon which to base my own, I risk an insistence upon sociohistorical contextualization that may well be more appropriately attended to in Santos's aggregated agenda. So be it. My point, in any case, is simply to suggest that rather than privilege any formulation of the subject, postmodern or otherwise, in a progressive reimagining of the law, we put the subject at risk by continuously interrogating its privileges. I might begin by disputing Santos's claim that "we" are in a period of "paradigmatic transition" by virtue of having to acknowledge other knowledges and "rival epistemologies" by asking for whom the exhaustion of modernity's certainties is a "deep and irresolvable crisis." Similarly, one could argue that, far from being exhausted, modernity's categories continue to provide many of the conceptual resources for a truly profound expansion of democratic politics-one that is only now realizing its potential by virtue of the failure of Enlightenment universal-isms and the proliferation of identities, epistemologies, and new social movements (Botwinick 1993; Laclau 1993, 1994; Lefort 1988; McClure 1992; Mouffe 1992a, 1993, 1995). Such politics, of course, are very likely to be enacted in struggles to expand the inclusiveness of common law and legislative categories-in courts, legislatures, and administrative tribunals, at local, national, and international levels. I will briefly return to the potential politics of postmodernity in my conclusion, for it is there, perhaps, that we might find more promising resources for a new conception of law
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Political science · Postmodernism · Sociology · Subject (documents · Topos theory · Computer Science · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Legal Systems and Judicial Processes · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 1997 - 2001 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |