Theatrical Jurisprudence: Bertolt Brecht, a street scene and the law

Presented by

Dr Marett Leiboff

Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Room:  67.202 (Moot Court)
Time:  12:30pm-1:30pm

Abstract

Drawing on the ideas of the theatre director, Bertolt Brecht, this paper will explore the possibility of a 'theatrical jurisprudence'.  I am posing this concept of a theatrical jurisprudence  in order to consider the ways in which law engages in framing and structuring processes, in which it draws on motifs and methods of idealised types.  However, law's approaches are literary and narrative driven, relying on the word and the book.  My aim is to find out if the canon of theatre theory can be used to provide law with alternative readings of people's conduct - in this instance, the online world.

In this paper, I will explore the insights that may be gained by drawing on Bertolt Brecht's exploration of the street scene, through which he explained the methods of the Verfremdungseffekte, this paper will explore how chat online and talk of the street, which are fundamentally similar in nature, will be treated by law very differently - simply because the online version is turned into words and thus a literary form - in the context of the Victorian bushfires in early 2009, where talk online continued despite the existence of a suppression order.

About the speaker:

Dr Marett Leiboff is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong, and is currently Acting Director of the Legal Intersections Research Centre.   Her research centres on legal conceptions of culture and creativity, based on an interdisciplinary scholarship that examines conventional legal understandings of arts and creative practices.  She came into law the long way round, via an MA in Theatre Studies. 

For further information contact:

Dr Nadirsyah Hosen
Lecturer
Faculty of Law
University of Wollongong
NSW Australia
Email: hosen@uow.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 4221 4192
Fax: +61 2 4221 3188

Last reviewed: 7 May, 2009

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