David Bowie Outlaw

by Alex Sharpe

This book explores the relevance of David Bowie’s life and music for contemporary legal and cultural theory. Focusing on the artist and artworks of David Bowie, this book brings to life, in essay form, particular theoretical ideas, creative methodologies and ethical debates that have contemporary relevance within the fields of law, social theory, ethics and art. What unites the essays presented here is that they all point to a beyond to the fact that law is not enough, or to be more precise, too much, too much to bear. For those who, like Bowie, see art, creativity and love as what ought to be the central organising principles of life, law will not do. In the face of its certainties, its rigidities, and its conceits, these essays, through Bowie, call forth the monster who laughs at the law, celebrate inauthenticity as a deeper truth, explore the ethical limits of art, cut up the laws of writing and embrace that which is most antithetical to law, love. This original engagement with the limits of law will appeal to those working in legal theory, ethics and law and popular culture, as well as in art and cultural studies.

126 pages, Hardcover

Published November 26, 2021

Reviews

[Phil Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays using David Bowie to explore a number of debates for those studying or are interested in, contemporary legal and cultural theory. So it’s Bowie loving academics. They heavily use the ideas and approach of Michel Foucault, who I confess, I am far from being an expert on (I’ve read two books of his, to be precise), but like I found with him, these essays have much to admire, but not uncritically. They are fun, serious, enlightening, confusing, accessible, pompous, astute, tenuous, they annoying, agreeable - all sometimes in the same paragraph. I enjoyed the book.