Law and the Unconscious

Law and the Unconscious

Freud’s discovery of the unconscious in the 19th century has had a profound impact on the ways that we think about the cultural life of the law. Unlike representations of the legal and juridical in cultural forms such as the film or the novel, the life of the law in the Freudian unconscious is latent and libidinal—and so too is its law. Psychoanalysis since Freud has had a rich impact on the cultural deployment of Western legal forms, including the biography of Judge Schreber, Jerome Frank’s legal realism, and the psychoanalyst as expert witness. These tropes are only one part of the story of the psychoanalytic relation of law to the unconscious. Even before we see the law in camera, cultural significance is inflected by the unconsciously legal. Here, it is cultural legal studies that is crucial, as it dares to think Freud’s dangerous idea.

Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.