Why join the categories of law and madness? After all, madness is outside the law -- indeed is the opposite of it -- and, in principle, legal institutions struggle to keep these slippery terms separate.
Law's Madness links these terms to see what that linkage generates, and explores the gray area between the realms of reason and madness. The very title, Law's Madness, suggests a relationship that is both possessive (a madness defined by legal discourse) and constitutive (a madness that resides in law).
This provocative collection of essays reveals the ways in which the law takes its definition from that which it excludes, suppresses, or excises from itself, and asks what must be forgotten in order for law to be sustained.
Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, and Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. Lawrence Douglas is Professor in the Department of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, Amherst College. Martha Umphrey is Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought, Amherst College.