Professor Dominik Zechner
Justice & Violence
crosslisted with Comparative Literature 01:195:373:01 and Social Justice 01:904:309:01
“The relationship between justice, violence, and the law is deeply vexed. While we may assume that strict adherence to the law ensures just outcomes, justice inevitably exceeds the boundaries of legal frameworks. Indeed, the very possibility of making a just decision—of acting or speaking justly—remains uncertain. In its attempt to uphold justice, the law, in turn, is paradoxically reliant on violence. As Thomas Hobbes famously stated, “covenants, without the sword, are but words.” This raises a critical question: how does legal violence differ from the unchecked violence of lawlessness? And might we imagine a legal order grounded in what Judith Butler calls “the force of nonviolence”? Our course examines these tensions by engaging with foundational texts alongside contemporary perspectives on social justice, political resistance, and revolutionary violence. We will analyze how social inequalities and the marginalization of certain identities and ways of life are justified through the fraught relationship between legality and violence. By studying the mechanisms of power this dynamic produces, we will explore the possibilities—and limits—of justice within the law.
Taught in English. Fulfills goals AHo, CCD-2.