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<p>This book review evaluates <i>Performing Law: Actors, Affects, Spaces</i>, edited by Peter Goodrich, Anna Jayne Kimmel, and Bernadette Meyler and published in 2026, from a multifaceted, critical perspective. The volume challenges the traditional orthodoxy that views law as merely a textual, normative, or rational set of rules, arguing instead that law is fundamentally constructed upon a theatrical, bodily, and performative structure. Comprising a total of thirteen chapters and three main sections (Forensis and Judicial Actors, Affects, and Violations), this collection brings together a diverse array of international scholars whose varied disciplinary affiliations—spanning literature, history, performance studies, aesthetics, and legal philosophy—underscore the volume's robust interdisciplinary strength. The book examines how law is “staged” across a broad historical and geographical spectrum, ranging from ancient Greece to early modern England, and from contemporary Hong Kong to protests on the streets of Portland. The authors treat the architecture of courtrooms, the forms of argumentation employed by lawyers, the tears or silences of defendants, the humour of judges, and the bodies of protesters as tools of “legal performance.” This study overturns narratives that claim law has become independent of theatre and has othered it (anti-theatricality), demonstrating that the realization of justice is only possible through a visual, auditory, and bodily performance—in other words, through a dramatic connection established with the audience. In conclusion, the book opens up an entirely new horizon of “Theatrical Jurisprudence” at the intersection of law and the humanities.</p>

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Performing Law Actors, Affects, Spaces

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月10日

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  • Ömer Gökhan Ulum

摘要

This book review evaluates Performing Law: Actors, Affects, Spaces, edited by Peter Goodrich, Anna Jayne Kimmel, and Bernadette Meyler and published in 2026, from a multifaceted, critical perspective. The volume challenges the traditional orthodoxy that views law as merely a textual, normative, or rational set of rules, arguing instead that law is fundamentally constructed upon a theatrical, bodily, and performative structure. Comprising a total of thirteen chapters and three main sections (Forensis and Judicial Actors, Affects, and Violations), this collection brings together a diverse array of international scholars whose varied disciplinary affiliations—spanning literature, history, performance studies, aesthetics, and legal philosophy—underscore the volume's robust interdisciplinary strength. The book examines how law is “staged” across a broad historical and geographical spectrum, ranging from ancient Greece to early modern England, and from contemporary Hong Kong to protests on the streets of Portland. The authors treat the architecture of courtrooms, the forms of argumentation employed by lawyers, the tears or silences of defendants, the humour of judges, and the bodies of protesters as tools of “legal performance.” This study overturns narratives that claim law has become independent of theatre and has othered it (anti-theatricality), demonstrating that the realization of justice is only possible through a visual, auditory, and bodily performance—in other words, through a dramatic connection established with the audience. In conclusion, the book opens up an entirely new horizon of “Theatrical Jurisprudence” at the intersection of law and the humanities.