The Phenomenology of Modern Legal Discourse: The Juridical Production and the Disclosure of Suffering

by William E. Conklin

Making use of Kafka's The Trial, this book explores the theory behind modern legal discourse. In order to investigate the subject the author explores a range of questions: how and why does the legal discourse of a modern state conceal the experienced meanings of a non-knower; if one has been harmed, does the legal discourse recognize the harm; does the harm sometimes slip through the juridical categorizations; if recognized, is the harm re-presented through a vocabulary, grammar and gestural style which are familiar to the expert knowers but not to the person harmed?

285 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998