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Theatricalizing Law, Marett Leiboff

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

To theatricalize law is to ask lawyers to be aware and responsive to the world that creates them and to be conscious of worlds beyond words. For the theatrical reminds us that law has to see as well as to interpret, and that seeing occurs through the body, even more so than the intellect. Reviewing the work of some of the key scholars whose work engages with the concept of theatricalizing law, this article challenges the presumption of dramatic verities and certainties as the mark of an effective critical form in law. Instead, to think law theatrically challenges knowledge, expectations, …