Table Of ContentSYNESTHETIC LEGALITIES
Synesthesia is the phenomenon where sensual perceptions are joined together as a combined
experience – that is, the ability to feel color, hear the visual, or even smell emotion. These
types of unions expand the normativity of our legal thinking, as the abilities to represent
the tethering of emotion, place, and concept to law are magnified. In this way, interpreta-
tions of law and legal phenomena that are enriched with embodied meaning contribute to
our understanding of how law works – namely through sensory input, sensory output, and
the attachment that happens within these sensory unions. This edited volume explores the
richly complex manifestations of synesthesia and law drawing from a plurality of approaches,
including legal studies, philosophy, social science, linguistics, history, cultural studies, and
the humanities. Contributions in the volume discuss how we feel/taste/smell/see/hear law
within the synesthetic scope of legal interpretation, legal consciousness, and legal culture.
The collection examines aspects of embodiment, place, and presence that constitutively
frame law amidst social, cultural, and historical contexts.
Sarah Marusek is an Associate Professor of Public Law in the Department of Political Sci-
ence at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Her research interests focus on sites of constitutive
law, legal geography, and legal semiotics while engaging legal pluralist frameworks of visual
jurisprudence. She has published widely on these and related areas.
LAW, LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
Series Editors
Anne Wagner, Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, France and Vijay
Kumar Bhatia, formerly of City University of Hong Kong
This series encourages innovative and integrated perspectives within and across the bounda-
ries of law, language and communication, with particular emphasis on issues of communica-
tion in specialized socio-legal and professional contexts. It seeks to bring together a range
of diverse yet cumulative research traditions in order to identify and encourage interdisci-
plinary research.
The series welcomes proposals – both edited collections as well as single-authored
monographs – emphasizing critical approaches to law, language, and communication; iden-
tifying and discussing issues; proposing solutions to problems; and offering analyses in areas
such as legal construction, interpretation, translation, and de-codification.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES:
MULTILINGUAL LAW: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS AND
UNDERSTANDING
Colin D. Robertson
ISBN 978-1-4094-2188-7
SHARI’A IN THE SECULAR STATE: EVOLVING MEANINGS OF ISLAMIC
JURISPRUDENCE IN TURKEY
Russell Powell
ISBN 978-1-4724-7954-9
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN EU LAW: MULTIDISCIPLINARY
PERSPECTIVES
Edited by Susan Šarcˇevic´
ISBN 978-1-4724-2897-4
TOWARDS RECOGNITION OF MINORITY GROUPS:
LEGAL AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
Edited by Marek Zirk-Sadowski, Bartosz Wojciechowski and Karolina M. Cern
ISBN 978-1-4724-4490-5
THE ASHGATE HANDBOOK OF LEGAL TRANSLATION
Edited by Le Cheng, King Kui Sin and Anne Wagner
ISBN 978-1-4094-6966-7
LEGAL LEXICOGRAPHY: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Edited by Máirtín Mac Aodha
ISBN 978-1-4094-5441-0
SYNESTHETIC LEGALITIES
Sensory dimensions of law and jurisprudence
Edited by Sarah Marusek
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Sarah Marusek; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of Sarah Marusek to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marusek, Sarah, editor author.
Title: Synesthetic legalities : sensory dimensions of law and jurisprudence / edited
by Sarah Marusek.
Description: New York : Routledge. | Series: Law, language and communication |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016023533 (print) | LCCN 2016023762 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781472482952 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315611693 (e-Book) |
ISBN 9781317047261 (Web PDF) | ISBN 9781317047254 ( ePub) |
ISBN 9781317047247 (Mobipocket)
Subjects: LCSH: Law and sociobiology. | Synesthesia. | Sociological jurisprudence.|
Senses and sensation. | Law—Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC K487.S65 S96 2016 (print) | LCC K487.S65 (ebook) |
DDC 340/.115—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023533
ISBN: 978-1-4724-8295-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-61169-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of figures and tables vii
Notes on contributors (in alphabetical order) viii
Acknowledgments xii
1 Exploring layers of law and the sensory at the volcano 1
SARAH MARUSEK
2 What legal rules are suitable for protruding media of
law and why? Contribution to the concept of
locality/non-locality of legal rules 9
MICHAŁ DUDEK
3 From waste management to recycling: Constructing mental
health policy in the Kingdom of Tonga 27
TIMOTHY P. FADGEN
4 What law tastes like: A free conjecture on the palate
of juridicity (Menu dégustation en quatre services) 45
MARCÍLIO FRANCA AND MARIA FRANCISCA CARNEIRO
(ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY CAIO MARTINO)
5 How to dance to the law: Engaged embodiment in
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 64
CHRISTOPHER LAUER
6 A tale of outsourcing: The enhanced presence and absence
of law through the senses 74
YUE S. ANG
7 “Do not touch”: Prohibitions on touch and the
incarcerated female body 95
MARILYN M. BROWN
v
CONTENTS
8 Deconstruction and bio-politics: Asymmetrical visuality,
spacing, power 109
CHRIS LLOYD
9 Artistic flash: Sketching the courtroom trial 130
ANITA LAM
10 Dependency and care in Peirce’s training of reasoning 147
CELIA BARDWELL-JONES
11 “Warmth” in justice: (Re)semiotization of “frozen embryo”
in the civil case of the four shidu parents 163
LIPING ZHANG AND XIAN ZHOU
12 The copyright of my sensorimotor experience 186
KRISTIAN BANKOV
13 An incitement to rapey discourse: Blurred lines and the
erotics of protest 200
UMMNI KHAN
14 “The map is not the territory”: Thoughts about synesthesia
and law 214
JOHN BRIGHAM
Index 226
vi
FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
4.1 “The Lawyer” or “The Jurist” (L’Avvocato, in Italian), by Giuseppe Arcimboldo 57
6.1 ConsuMorphosis 82
6.2 Contact: The Touch of Law 83
6.3 Morphing: Law Shapes Behavior 84
6.4 Synchronicity and the Linearity of Law 85
6.5 Resilience in the Absence of Law 86
6.6 The Collapse in Law’s Absence 86
11.1 Mini-sketch of the layout for news reports on the trial in proportion
[Liping Zhang and Xian Zhou] 171
11.1a Image of the Tube Baby 171
11.1b Image of the Lab 171
11.2 Multimodal transcription of the shidu parents’ perception of the
frozen embryos 173
11.2a Intensity contour of Shen’s utterances 182
11.2b Intensity contour of Liu’s utterances 182
11.3 Semiotic changes in meanings of frozen embryos 180
14.1 Small-scale map of the flow field, March 10, 2015 221
14.2 Photo by Sarah Marusek, Hilo, HI, 2012 224
Tables
11.1 Views and stances of the two courts on frozen embryos 178
12.1 Evolution of the copyright factors 194
vii
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Yue S. Ang is Senior Lecturer in Law at Oxford Brookes University. She researches in the
area of legal theory. Her PhD thesis ‘Solutions to Outsourcing Abuses: The Creation of
Collective Obligations through Multilateral Contracts’ encompasses aspects of law (or
the lack of it), legal philosophy, social philosophy, accountability, guidance control and
responsibility, collectives or collectivities, and the reduction of responsibility. She has
published several pieces in business on the topics of CSR and leadership. She is currently
researching in social enterprising and the recent UK laws; employment law in the UK;
the forgetful functor and corporate externality; and law and dance.
Kristian Bankov is Professor in Semiotics at New Bulgarian University and Director of the
Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies. His interests in semiotics started during
the early nineties when he was studying in Bologna, following the courses of Ugo Volli
and Umberto Eco. He graduated in 1995 and teaches semiotic courses at New Bulgar-
ian University. In 2000 he defended his PhD in Helsinki with Eero Tarasti. In 2006 he
became Associate Professor in Semiotics, and he became Professor in 2011. His major
interests initially were in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of Bergson, and the
existential semiotics. Then he oriented his research interests toward sociosemiotics and
identity. Since 2005, Kristian has studied consumer culture; in the last several years, his
major interests are toward new media and digital culture. He has written four books and
is active internationally, with numerous articles in Bulgarian, English, and Italian; since
2006 he has directed the organization of the international Early-Fall School of Semiotics
(EFSS); in 2014 he was elected as the Secretary General of the International Association
for Semiotic Studies.
Celia Bardwell-Jones is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair for the Gender and
Women’s Studies Program at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Her research interests
include feminist philosophy, American philosophy, critical race philosophy, and environ-
mental philosophy. She regularly teaches courses in ethics, theories of knowledge, phi-
losophy of nature, philosophy of cultural diversity, and feminist philosophy.
John Brigham (Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst) has been involved
with the International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law since its reception and also
with the International Institute for the Sociology of Law and the Law and Courts Section
of the American Political Science Association. His work includes Constitutional Lan-
guage (1978), The Cult of the Court (1987), The Constitution of Interests (1996), and
Material Law (2009).
viii
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Marilyn M. Brown, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i
Hilo, where she serves as Chair of the Sociology Department. She received her BA in
Anthropology from Wellesley College and her PhD in Sociology from UH Manoa. Her
research specializations include the following: Criminology, Corrections; Reintegration
of Former Prisoners; Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Crime; Corrections and Families; and
Inequality and Criminal Justice Policy. She is the author of articles on crime and justice
as well as chapters in edited volumes. Dr. Brown has also authored evaluation reports on
criminal justice programming for a number of Hawai‘i state agencies.
Maria Francisca Carneiro has her Doctor of Law from the Federal University of Paraná
(UFPR), Post-doctor in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon (Portugal), Master
of Education from PUC/PR, and Bachelor in Philosophy from UFPR. She is a licensed
lawyer and Professor at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). She holds Correspond-
ing Fellow status with the Faculty of Law, Governance and International Relations at
London Metropolitan University (UK) and is a member of the Language Center (Centro
de Letras) of Paraná, and a member of the Italian Society for Law and Literature (Italy).
She is an Editorial Board Member/Reviewer of the International Journal for Law, Lan-
guage & Discourse (China), and Scientific & Academic Publishing (USA).
Michał Dudek (PhD in Law from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, in 2013)
works at the Department of Sociology of Law, Faculty of Law and Administration, Jag-
iellonian University in Krakow. He published on the influence of multiculturalism on
law-making and law-applying, legal policy, axiology of law and visuality, and law. In his
monograph Komunikowanie prawa w dobie pluralizmu kulturowego (The Communica-
tion of Law in the Age of Cultural Pluralism) (NOMOS, Kraków, 2014), he investigates
the issue of how foreigners can acquire orientation about the law of the state in which
territory they are currently living. Furthermore, he analyzes theories of intercultural com-
munication that can be applied to this problem, and to what extent they are applicable
to it. Currently, he works on the selected problems of legal geography and application of
selected threads from philosophy of technology as well as science and technology studies
to sociology of law.
Timothy P. Fadgen earned his PhD from the University of Auckland in 2014 and has been
an international attorney for more than ten years practicing in Maine, American Samoa,
and Samoa. Most recently, Tim has advocated on behalf of migrants from Africa and
Central America seeking asylum in the United States. Tim’s doctoral thesis examined the
intersecting roles of international organizations, indigenous policy actors, and “culture
entrepreneurs” in the development of mental health policies in Samoa and Tonga. His
current research interests include migration policy and the intersection of law and policy
transfer and culture. Currently, Dr. Fadgen is an American Council of Learned Societies
(ACLS) postdoctoral fellow with the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in Minne-
apolis. Tim’s work with ARC’s social enterprise project explores the role of social impact
indicators and social investors on international development programs in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
Marcílio Franca is Professor at the post-graduate programs in Law at the Federal University
of Paraíba (UFPB) and Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE). He is Prosecutor at
the Prosecution Office at the Audit Court of Paraíba, Brazil; Post-doctor (European Uni-
versity Institute, Florence, 2008, Calouste Gulbenkian Post-Doctoral Fellow); Doctor
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