‘Legal Critique’: Elements for a Genealogy

While teachers and students of law tend to take for granted that critical legal campaigning originates in the late 20th century, many historians suggest that the summons of law and its state of accusation before the tribunal of critique dates back to the days of the Enlightenment. I am arguing, in contrast, that, in the West, the history of legal critique is by no means shorter than the history of law; that Western legal evolution embraces and supposes anti-legalism or ‘antinomianism’ since the days of early Christianity and throughout; that, conversely, an adequate assessment of Christianity must stress its character as an anti-institutional, anti-legal, and anti-religious campaign; that the standard view of Humanism, Enlightenment, and Modernity, which tends to foreground their antagonism to Christian institutions and to deny their nature as instantiations of the Christian campaign, misses the crucial point both about them and about Christianity (and, implicitly at least, about geopolitics); that key concepts of political modernity thrust their roots, not only and not most importantly into Political Theology, but rather into Saint Paul’s legal ‘new deal’; that, far from giving rise, as intended, to a deactivation of law, Paul’s action has resulted, instead, in the interlinking build-up of a militant denial of law on the one hand, and an emerging intensification of law on the other hand. Let the reader be warned that the article strings together a bouquet of snap-shots from a work in progress.     

保辜制度“被害救助”功能的迁移理论与承接架构

保辜制度是指在保护人身伤害案件中的受害人、追究加害人的法律责任,进而整合社会关系的一种法律制度。由于保辜制度中的因果关系理论与现代理念存在冲突且没有在现代性法体系中得到解决,保辜制度被以现代刑法理念为基础的刑法典否弃。保辜制度的消亡虽然符合社会与法律的发展趋势,但其本身蕴含的"被害救助"功能亦被不合理抛弃,且现行法律制度不能很好地涵盖、替代保辜制度所具有的"被害救助"功能。因此,如果要在构建刑事被害人救助制度中成功地迁移保辜制度的"被害救助"功能,就必须对保辜制度中的因果关系困境进行突破,以及在现代刑事法律体系中构建承接制度。     

Under the analphabête series

Theatre

Speech (The Predicament of Three Women in the Nuclear Age), written and directed by Avram Patt, Theatre for the New York City, October 1983, New York City

Fen, by Caryl Churchill directed by Les Waters, London Joint Stock Theatre Group's production presented by Joseph Paff at the Public Theatre, New York City

Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, directed by Max Stafford‐Clark, Royal Theatre Court production presented by Joseph Papp at The Public Theatre, New York City

Sophie, by comedienne Judy Sloan, October 1983, at the Gay Women's Alternative, New York City.

Awake Sleeping Heart, a collage for five women based on the life, journals and paintings of the Mexican artist Fri‐da Kahlo, conceived and directed by Emma Missouri, October 1983, Northampton, Massachusetts

Antigone Too: Rites of Love and Defiance, written and directed by Martha Boesing for At the Foot of the Mountain, August 1983, at the People's Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo, by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, performed by Estelle Parsons at the Public Theatre, New York City, Fall 1983.

Dance

Celebration of Traditional Cultures, La Mama Annex, November 11–13, 1983.

History, An American Dream, by Anne Bogart, St. Mark's Church, October, 1983.

Vamot A Andar (Let's Get Going), Wallflower Order and Grupo Raiz, October, 1983, Symphony Space, New York City

Testimonies, New York City Political Dancers, Merce Cunningham Dance Studio, August 1983.

Set and Reset, Trisha Brown and Company, Brooklyn Academy of Music, October 1983.

Books

The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America 1970–1980, edited by Moira Roth. Los Angeles: Astro Ariz, 1983. 149 pp., bibliographies. Cloth: $25.00; paper: $12.50

Woman and Spirituality by Carol Ochs. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1983. 144 pp., notes, bibliography, index. Cloth: $16.95

Women In Music: An Anthology of Source Readings from the Middle Ages to the Present, edited by Carol Neuls‐Bates. New York: Harper &; Row, 1982. 332 pp., selected bibliography, index, illustrations. Cloth: $18.50

American Women Composers Before 1870 by Judith Tick. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1983. 233 pp., appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth: $44.95

Louise Farrenc, 1840–1875 by Bea Friedland. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1980. 177 pp., appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth: $49.95

Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History by Lou Taylor, Boston: Allen &; Unwin, 1983. 287 pp., appendices, chapter notes, select bibliography, index. Cloth: $24.50

Listings     

Pope Benedict XVI Confronts Religious Relativism

Pope Benedict XVI’s inflammatory speech at Regensburg highlights a subtle difference between Benedict and John Paul II. John Paul called Muslims and Jews “sons of Abraham,” and he organized high-profile interfaith events. Benedict is more skeptical of interreligious dialog and more confrontational toward Islam than was his predecessor. This shift in tone toward Islam stems from changed historical circumstances. Islam has replaced communism as Europe’s biggest ideological challenge. But, there are also subtle theological differences between the two Popes. John Paul was trained by Dominicans, and throughout his papacy, he was a champion of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Augustine, with his bleaker view of non-Christian cultures, is the dominant influence on Benedict. Benedict believes that theologies of religious pluralism, which lead to metaphysical and religious relativism, have replaced liberation theologies as the most serious threats to Catholic orthodoxy.

试论利科早期的象征概念

利科的早期哲学以意志为主题,试图将法国的反思哲学、马塞尔和雅斯贝斯的生存哲学与胡塞尔的描述现象学结合起来,以期探讨人的意志的内在结构和现实展示。他的象征概念就是在《意志哲学》的整体框架内提出的,并基于意志哲学的发展要求和恶的象征现象的引入,这一概念蕴含在从描述现象学向解释学现象学的转换过程之中。由此,他对象征的考察及恶的象征动力学的分析都是在现象学的意向性范畴下进行的。     

The incompatibility of peacemaking and military power

Since the 1990s, the Sino-Cameroonian relationship has grown rapidly. Today, China plays a key role in Cameroon's economic development, particularly in regards to infrastructure projects. However, in the last few years, Yaoundé's partnership with Beijing has encountered an increasing number of obstacles. Behind the warm pro-China rhetoric, the Cameroonian government has become more willing to rebalance their country's external relations, in favour of both its traditional partners and other emerging economies.     

The Historico-poetic Materialism of Benjamin and Celan

This article explores the relationship between the historical materialism of Walter Benjamin and the poetics of Paul Celan, and claims that within Celan’s poetics, we find a form for thinking Benjamin’s Marxism beyond Benjamin. The driving force of Benjamin’s critique of historicism is the desire to free Marx’s ideas (class struggle, classless society, progress) from the empty time of progress. By attending to the “breathturns” at the heart of Celan’s, The Meridian, this article uncovers a poetic historiography grounded in Benjamin’s now-time. It is with this conception of history that Marx’s ideas can be reimagined as a historico-poetic materialism and reinvigorated with revolutionary force.     

Building in the Imagin(ed)(n)ation: An Essay Inspired by W.B. Yeats' – ``Meditations in Time of Civil War'

Ireland is a country haunted by a past which refuses to remain buried. This past irrupts and interupts in texts as diverse as the Irish Constitution and the poems of W.B. Yeats. This piece ruminates on the representation of the state's violent past in legal texts and in the poetry of W.B. Yeats and Paul Muldoon and attempts to draw links between the personal and the political narration of violence. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ukrainian kleptocrats and America's real-life House of Cards: Corruption,lobbyism and the rule of law

Washington DC is not only a center for democracy promotion programs by government-funded and private foundations and think tanks. Washington DC has also attracted hundreds of millions of dollars for lobbyists, political consultants and think tanks from authoritarian political forces and kleptocrats who have little in common with American and European values. Both Republicans and Democrats have been recipients of these illicit funds from state officials and oligarchs who are seeking to ingratiate themselves with American public opinion. Political consultants, lobbyists, lawyers and think tanks which receive funds from such sources are part of a bigger problem of reverse corruption and cynicism and the export of authoritarian practices from Ukraine and post-Soviet states to the West. This was clearly seen in the hiring of Paul Manafort, Viktor Yanukovych's long-time political consultant by US presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump's promise to ‘drain the (Washington) swamp’ rings hollow after it was revealed he accepted funds from a Ukrainian oligarch who had earlier donated funds to the Clinton's (Reader 2016).