REMINDER: Laurent DESUTTER "Post-Critical Legal Studies" (CORE Legal Theory Seminar, Faculty Council Room, 20 APR)

Prof. Laurent Desutter will present on Post-Critical Legal Studies at the third session of the CORE Legal Theory Seminar at 12:00 in the Faculty Council Room (Building C, fourth floor).

Abstract:

Critical Legal Studies have officially half a century. During this period of time, the movement has unfolded, receded and unfolded again – until the moment when it suddenly was everywhere, even in places that, originally, seemed to be the most immune to any critical temptation. Nowadays, we are all critical lawyers. The success of the critical program, however, has not been without a cost – namely the fact that critique, as a process of thought, has started to reveal its fundamental flaws as it triumphed. As long as critique consisted in some sort of a horizon, promising at the same time intellectual lucidity and political emancipation, these flaws could be done with; but now that criticality has become the condition of every form of thought, they themselves have become critical. What are these flaws? What do they force us to realize? How could we overcome them? To these questions, a new set of theoretical proposals, loosely gathered under the heading ‘post-critical’, has tried to offer some answers – but not without causing the ire of prominent tenants of criticalism. What are these proposals? How consistent are they? And how do they apply to law? This is what this session of the CORE Seminar in Legal Theory will discuss through a brief legal archeology of the very idea of critique – and an exposition of what post-criticality might mean from a juridical-pragmatist standpoint.

On the orator:

Laurent de Sutter is Professor of Legal Theory at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Professor of International Law and Literature at Sciences-Po Paris. The author of almost thirty award-winning books translated into 15 languages, he also is a member of the Editorial Board of “Law & Literature”, “Décalages” or “Iconocrazia”, as well as of the Scientific Board of the Collège International de Philosophie. He also is the Editor of the “Perspectives Critiques” series at Presses Universitaires de France and “Theory Redux” series at Polity Press.

RSVP with rodrick dot van dot der dot smissen at vub dot be for Teams-link.