Viva vox iuris - oder die juridische Stimme der Literatur. Kafkas Der Proceß und Hoffmanns Der Sandmann im Spiegel der dogmatischen Anthropologie Pierre Legendres

The doctoral dissertation “Viva vox iuris” is aimed at extending the research on law and literature by developping a new perspective, based on Pierre Legendre’s “dogmatic anthropology”.
Starting with an overview of the current state of research in this field, and based on a detailed presentation of Legendre’s theory, the dissertation develops the hypothesis that the deep entanglement of law and literature confers upon literature the capacity of either reinforcing the effectivity of cultural normativity, or of influencing it in the sense of a modificatory force. The plausibility of this hypothesis is then assessed by a thorough analysis of Kafka’s The Trial and Hoffmann’s The Sandman.
The Trial is presented as being a novel that stages the failure of interpretation on the diegetic, hermeneutic as well as the production level, i.e. with regard to the author (– interpretation being, from Legendre’s perspective, the fundamental cultural technique assuring a non-delusional human existence). Being confronted with this failure and the consequent lack of a regime of sense, the reader gains insight, ex negativo, into the necessity of being inscribed, by way of interpretation, into an order of Reference that needs to be mediated by literature and law.
With regard to The Sandman, the dissertation undertakes to show, through a combination of the concept of testimony with the dogmatic-anthropological core concepts of alterity and representation, how the fantastical blurring of the limits between reality and fiction, as staged in the novel, provides insights into the contingency of the fundamental structure of the normative order of cultural and subjective identity.