Literature and Law: Consensus and the Art of Disagreement.
Literary and legal judgments require, formulate, and defend, but also retain an urge to disrupt, a consensus of like-minded people. This essay studies the aesthetic of taste in literature and the jury system in law to show how consensus works, and at what cost. Using Pierre Bourdieu's model of socia...
| Published in: | University of Toronto Quarterly Vol. 85; no. 2; pp. 1 - 25 |
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| Format: | Essay |
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University of Toronto Press
Spring2016
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=115940893&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 115940893 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00420247 UTQ jtl: University of Toronto Quarterly issn: 00420247 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Spring2016 vid: 85 iid: 2 pid: 678 pub: University of Toronto Press artinfo: ui: 115940893 10.3138/utq.85.2.01 ppf: 1 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 642KB tig: atl: Literature and Law: Consensus and the Art of Disagreement. aug: au: KERTZER, JON affil: Professor (Emeritus), Department of English, University of Calgary su: Consensus (Social sciences) Law & literature Aesthetics Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002 Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 Jury O. J. Simpson Trial sug: subj: Consensus (Social sciences) Law & literature Aesthetics Bourdieu, Pierre, 1930-2002 Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 Jury O. J. Simpson Trial keyword: Austen Bourdieu consensus jury taste ab: Literary and legal judgments require, formulate, and defend, but also retain an urge to disrupt, a consensus of like-minded people. This essay studies the aesthetic of taste in literature and the jury system in law to show how consensus works, and at what cost. Using Pierre Bourdieu's model of social "fields" competing for authority, it argues that consensus must be won within a dissensus that it can never quite quell. Concord emerges from discord, which remains unruly. This dynamic energizes theories of taste (Burke, Hume, Scarry), which derive social and moral relevance from the sensory immediacy of art, and the jury system, which theatrically forges agreement out of judicial dispute. Jane Austen provides examples of irony in the service of critical taste; the O.J. Simpson criminal trial illustrates the tribulations of reaching a unanimous verdict, which it displays to a disputatious public. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Essay src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of University of Toronto Quarterly is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: University of Toronto Quarterly holder: University of Toronto Press dt: @attributes: year: 2016 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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