Latour and the Passage of Law

'Bruno Latour's map of law's topology pays equal attention to charting its brute self-referencing and surveying its astonishing capacity to propagate all other modes of existence. The essays in this collection deftly unfold his map and help orient it toward new institutions for the Anthropocene.' Richard Janda, Faculty of Law, McGill University A multi-disciplinary inquiry into law as a mode of existence Bruno Latour's writings in science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and philosophy are well-known, but only rarely has his work in law been appreciated as a core element of his oeuvre or, still less, as a passage point for students and scholars of law. The essays in this collection demonstrate the urgency with which both of those omissions must be reconsidered. Leveraging analytical tools drawn from the actor-network theory Latour developed in key works like Science in Action, Reassembling the Social and The Making of Law, and combining them with the philosophical anthropology of the Moderns offered in An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, each chapter contributes to the production of a new and exciting vision for legal theory, agile enough to traverse the spectrum of existing legal epistemologies, from the rigidly doctrinal to the socio-cultural, while carving out a surprising place of its own. Latour's concluding essay responds to criticisms and offers a snapshot of his current views on law as a mode of existence. Kyle McGee practices law in the United States. He is the author of Bruno Latour: The Normativity of Networks (2014) and co-editor of Deleuze and Law (2012). Cover image: Stuart Dalziel Cover design: Paul Smith [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com