Law & Theater as Bridges between the Humanities and the Social Sciences: An Essay in Four Acts

Abstract:     
This is an essay about the relationship between law and the humanities. I argue that law serves as an important bridge between the humanities and social sciences, because law has important features of both fields. This peculiar nature situates it within both fields simultaneously yet makes it a member of neither. Interestingly, the art of theater too does not completely fit into either the humanities or the social sciences.

Both Western theater and Western law are the products of classical Greece. They are both rhetorical fields, and both deal with similar dilemmas with strikingly similar means: both law and theater are deeply influenced by the tension between representation and construction of social structures; both enjoy the same history, similar structures and even similar languages. Finally, theatrical and legal experiences alike are whole only when a text is performed before an audience. In theater this is the actual show, and in law, as I argue in this essay, it is the written judgment.

Note: Downloadable document is in Hebrew.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 44

Keywords: law & theater, law & literature, sexuality, gender studies, feminism, patriarchy

Accepted Paper Series