Law and Society Commons^™

Rhetoric Of Silence: Some Reflections On Law, Literature, And Social Violence, James A. Epstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

Martha Minow suggests the importance of looking outside of court-rooms and the law to find ways of speaking about social and family violence. Her article underscores the difficulties of breaking silence, and yet the power to impose silence is integral to violence itself. We are called upon, however, not only to speak, but to listen. Respectful listening indeed may be a prerequisite to attempting to frame words and actions of intervention and resistance. We are called upon to speak, but we are hard pressed to summon public language that does justice to private pain and anguish.

Robert Cover, in his …