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(Non)violence (LAW-DS-NONVIOL)

LAW-DS-NONVIOL

Description

Introduction
The seminar explores the relationship between violence and the law. Most states go back to a form of violence (in achieving independence, unification, secession, revolution) and most contemporary states continue to rely on violence, or the threat thereof, both internally and externally. They even claim the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence. This latter claim entails, on the one hand, that the use of violence by the state is presumed to be legitimate while the use of violence by others than state officials is presumed to be illegitimate. State and non-state violence comes in different forms, physical and verbal, actual and threatened (coercion). One salient instance of state violence is law enforcement. Criminal law, police, and prisons come to mind. But private law equally relies ultimately on the backing of state violence. Contract, property and tort law are enforced, respectively, through remedies for breach, evictions, and injunctions.

Should we – should lawyers – take the legitimacy of state violence and the illegitimacy of non-state violence for granted? Or can non-state violence sometimes be legitimate, for example as a response to illegitimate state violence? In particular, do the colonised, the oppressed, the marginalised and the exploited have a right to use violence to free themselves from the violences of colonisation, oppression, marginalisation and exploitation? Beyond legitimacy, can a just and peaceful society ever be based on organised violence? Should protest and liberation movements remain committed to non-violent, even in the face of brutal violence used against them? If so, why? Should people not belonging to colonised, oppressed, marginalised or exploited groups exercise epistemic and moral humility when it comes to answering such questions? Do the terms ‘violence’, ‘force’, and ‘coercion’ refer ultimately to the same thing (and in all languages) or is their relationship more complex?

These and other questions will be central to this seminar. Core themes will include decolonisation, revolution, resistance, and political protest. Our discussions will centre classical and more recent texts on (non)violence. While the texts are mostly from philosophers, the aim of the seminar is to connect them, through our discussions, with very concrete and practical questions about the role of law – and the position of (legal) scholars – in relation to state and non-state violence. Thus, the seminar seeks overlapping encounters between law and philosophy, theory and praxis, and (radically) different views on violence/nonviolence exercised and faced by the law.
 
No specific prior knowledge is required. Participants from all departments are welcome.

Core readings

• Max Weber, Politics as a vocation [1919]
• Walter Benjamin, Critique of Violence [1921]
• Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth [1961] (Penguin Books 2001) ch 1
• INCITE!, Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex (2001) (https://incite-national.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/incite-cr-statement.pdf)
• Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (Verso 2020)
• Elsa Dorlin's, Self Defence: A Philosophy of Violence (Verso 2022)
• Françoise Vergès, A Feminist Theory of Violence: A Decolonial Perspective (Pluto 2022)

You are welcome to read any of the texts in another language, be it the original or another translation.

The reading list is subject to minor changes, including more specific selections from some of the books, until 12 January 2026.


First, Second & Third Term: registration from 22 to 26 September 2025.

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