Legal Theory and the Media of Law

Thomas Vesting, Professor for Public Law, Legal Theory and Media Theory, Faculty of Law, Goethe University, Germany

• Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements PART I LANGUAGE AND SPEECH I. Introduction: Legal Theory as Media Theory 2. Language, Media, Subjectivity 3. On the Orality of Oral Cultures 4. Oral Legal Culture and the “Ethics” of the Gift 5. Traces of Oral Legal Culture in Homer (and Hesiod) PART II WRITING 6. Hot Writing and Cool 7. Tradition and Innovation in Writing Cultures 8. Transitions to Writing in Law 9. Specialist Writing: Roman Civil Law 10. The Comprehensive Text of Jewish Law PART III PRINT 11. The Parchment Codex and the “Spirit” of Christianity 12. Print Culture, Print Epistemology 13. “Incarnation” of Sovereignty 14. “Excarnation” of Sovereignty 15. The Cultural Framework of the Liberal State PART IV COMPUTER NETWORKS 16. Mass Media and Mass Culture 17. The Culture and Epistemology of Networks 18. Constitutionalism 19. Statehood and Democracy 20. Further Exemplary Fields Bibliography Index

'What significance does media (e.g. the form and materiality of expression) have for law and legal thought? Covering a hugely impressive historical range - from oral traditions, through the invention of writing and print, to today's computer networks - this new book from Thomas Vesting offers the best guide currently available to that question. Putting in dialogue media theory and legal theory, Vesting does not shy away from the most difficult issues at the intersection of these two fields. The book will be of interest to everyone from book historians to theorists of contemporary mass media. An impressive achievement.' --Maksymilian Del Mar, Queen Mary University of London, UK