Monateri, Pier Giuseppe

English

Institutional Research Information System University of Turin

Volume 19             [2013] C.E.L.B.       Issue  2  THE CARDOZO ELECTRONIC LAW BULLETIN  fall 2013  RIGHT TO HEALTH OF NEWCOMERS TO CANADA. REFLECTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF A COMPARISON WITH ITALY              Viviana Molaschi    IL CONSENSO-DISPOSITIVO. STRATEGIE DI GIURIDIFICAZIONE  NELLA COMPARAZIONE TRA SISTEMI           Cristina Costantini    IL FAUST INCOMPIUTO DI LUDOVICO ACTIS PERINETTI LAW, POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY  AND THE INTELLECTUAL CLASH OF THE ‘50’S    Francesco Forte    IN THE SHADOW OF AN ABSENT LAW. HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE MEANING  FROM CONRAD TO COPPOLA,VIA ELIOT AND BROOKS            Pier Giuseppe Monateri    the cardozo institute issn 1128-322x The Cardozo Law Bulletin is a peer-reviewed, English and Italian language journal concerned to provide an international forum for academic research exploring the thresholds of legal theory, judicial practice and public policy, where the use of a 'comparative law and literature' approach becomes crucial to the understanding of Law as a complex order.  The Cardozo Law Bulletin, established in 1995 as one of the world first Law Journals on the Web, invites the submission of essays, topical article, comments, critical reviews, which will be evaluated by an independent committee of referees on the basis of their quality of scholarship, originality, and contribution to reshaping legal views and perspectives.  !!!!!SUBMISSIONS: The Cardozo Law Bulletin only accepts submissions made in accordance with the MLA (Modern Language Association) style, the most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. http://www.jus.unitn.it/cardozo/  CHIEF EDITOR: Pier Giuseppe Monateri MANAGING EDITOR: Cristina Costantini  REFEREES: Ermanno Calzolaio, Daniela Carpi, Maria Rosaria Marella, Giovanni Marini, Roberto Pardolesi, Giovanni Pascuzzi, Federico Pizzetti, Giovanni Maria Riccio, Giovanni Sciancalepore, Salvatore Sica, Andrea Zoppini. !!© 1995-2013  The Cardozo Institute 2013 Edition: Vol. 19 (2013) – 2, The Fall Issue ISSN 1128-322X T H E  C A R D O Z O   ELECTRONIC LAW BULLETIN  VOLUME XIX    FALL 2013           NUMBER 2  CONTENTS  ARTICLES   RIGHT TO HEALTH OF NEWCOMERS TO CANADA. REFLECTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF A COMPARISON WITH ITALY          Viviana Molaschi    IL CONSENSO-DISPOSITIVO. STRATEGIE DI GIURIDIFICAZIONE  NELLA COMPARAZIONE TRA SISTEMI                Cristina Costantini    IL FAUST INCOMPIUTO DI LUDOVICO ACTIS PERINETTI. LAW, POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY  AND THE INTELLECTUAL CLASH OF THE ‘50’S       Francesco Forte    IN THE SHADOW OF AN ABSENT LAW. HUMAN RIGHTS AND MEANING  FROM CONRAD TO COPPOLA, VIA ELIOT AND BROOKS              Pier Giuseppe Monateri ...In the Shadow of an Absent Law.Human Rights and Meaning from Conrad to Coppola, via Eliot and Brooks.The agony of indistinction, the erasure of boundaries, the becoming virtual of borders and identities spells the universalization of comparison and the advent of non-law. Peter Goodrich, Interstitium and Non-Law (2012)Scheme• The Matter of Law in Apocalypse Now• How the Story Produces Its Meanings• What Can We Derive by This AnalysisA Matter of Law• Kurtz Became Insane• His Command Must be Terminated• He Must Be Killed• Why ?A Matter of Human Rights• KURTZ’s Account" I've seen horrors...horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to callme a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that...Butyou have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face...I remember when I was with Special Forces...Seems a thousand centuries ago...We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for PolioWe went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile...A pile of little arms. And I remember...I...I...I cried...And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never wantto forget. And then I realized...like I was  shot...Like I was shot with adiamond...a diamond bullet right  through my forehead...And I thought:My God...the genius of that.HR Violation• The 1st element of the Story, not of Plot • The One starting the chain of events• Is Violation of Childrens’ Rights• Kurtz’s Violent Reaction is HumanitarianFrom Atrocity to Atrocity• The  genius. The will to do that. Perfect,genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.  And then I realized they werestronger than we.they had the strength...the  strength...to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles  here would be over very quickly. Youhave to have men who are moral...and  at the same time who are able toutilize their primordal instincts to kill without feeling...without  passion...without judgement...without judgement. Because it's judgement that defeats us. "Law & War• Law its limit, its essence and• Its possible presence in War• War is the perfect state of exceptionConrad’s Horrors have a face• The Beginning of Kurtz’s Self Distruction Lies in HR violationsUS Army Reaction• COLONEL KURTZ (on tape)" I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving. "  ON TAPE"11th transmission, December 30th, 0500 hours, sector KZK."  KURTZ (on tape)" We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow aftercow, village after village, army after army. And they call me an assasin. What do you call it when the assasins accuse the assasin ? They lie.. they lie and we have to be mercifulfor those who lie. Those nabobs. I hate them. How I hate them..."Murder• Now he's crossed to Cambodia with his Montagnard army, who worship the man, like a god, and follow every order however ridiculous."  CORMAN"Well, I have some other shocking news to tell you. ColonelKurtz was about to be arrested for murder."  WILLARD"I don't follow sir. Murdered who ?"  LUCAS"Kurtz had ordered executions of some Vietnamese intelligenceagents. Men he believed were double agents. So he took matters into his own hands."Insanity• CORMAN"Well, you see Willard... In this war, things get confusedout there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. Out there with these natives it must bea temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict inevery human heart between the rational and the irrational,between  good and  evil. The  good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln calledthe better angels of our nature. Every man has got abreaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane."  WILLARD"Yes sir, very much so sir. Obviously insane."The Mission•  LUCAS"Your mission is to proceed up to Nung river in a Navypatrol boat. Pick up colonel Kurtz' path at Nu Mung Ba,follow it, learn what you can along the way. When you findcolonel infiltrate his team by whatever means available andterminate the colonel's command."  WILLARD"Terminate ? The colonel ?"  CORMAN"He's out there operating without any decent restraint.Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.And he is still in the field commanding his troops."  CIVILIAN"Terminate with extreme prejudice."  LUCAS"You understand captain... , that this operation doesnot exist, nor will it ever exist."Law / No-Law• Vietnamese violations -> Kurtz Illegality• Army : Accusation of Murder• But to Kill Him in a non existing operation• Everyone is reacting illegally to the illegality of the other• Law discarded by all participants, even if Law in War is the IssueHow Meaning is Produced• Peter Brooks, Reading for Plot :  • 1st narrator [Marlow[Kurtz]end Marlow’s]end • Coppola [Conrad [Eliot]Conrad]Coppola• Plot : a series of event where ending gives meaning to the whole (to the beginning) • Peculiarly similar to Eliot’s Effect,  • A plotting on a Plot centered upon deferment in the same time as it makes explicit the nature of meaning as defermentHow the Meaning is producedWaste Land• NOTES Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan) To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Attis Adonis Osiris. The Footnotes to the Waste Land realize the meaning of the Poem thorugh its deferment  Coppola is deferring meaning thorugh an indirect quotation to a Poem where meaning is deferred This Screen Shot is besides the visual realisation of Eliot’s Footnotes : device of correlative objective as theorized by the same Eliot Analisi letteraria• tema : legge, guerra , stato di eccezione, diritti umani • uccisione / giudizio • nuda vita / vita vestita : braccia • inversion - torsione concetti giuridici • MA : come il testo produce i suoi significatiproduction of meaning• Foscolo : metonimia dome esperienza ontologica, non come figura retorica • Casablanca : codici di censura di Hollywood : produce entrambi i significati • Coppola -> Conrad, ma via Eliot • cioè attraverso il centro del Canone • differendoloEliot is Flagging Kurtz’ Presence• Prufrock (the Heblem of deferring)• The Hollow Men (explicit)• By Allusion : The Waste Land (books implicit sub-text) through foot-notes (implicit sub-text)i 3 riff.• If Prufrock is the Hemblem of Deferment• Hollow Men Explicit in Epigraph : Mistah Kurtz - he dead.• But Why the Waste Land, and why by allusionLe tre opere di Eliot come centro del Canone modernista and the extreme intellectual operation of plunging pop culture into The Literary Canon to produce its meaning about the Law Concetti Chiave• Differimento / intertestualità (Law) • Collasso Critica / testo letterario • lotta per il canone (Montale - Gozzano) • Miglior modo di approcciare Eliot via i suoi testi critici : AmletoWaste Land• Coppola ?Meaning• What Kurtz is, and then what the meaning of the work is depends on Eliot’s Reading of Conrad, not on Conrad himself • And in a way it is the same meaning of the Waste Land, because the best elucidation of it for Eliot was his citation of the Horrors of Kurtz • And we saw that in Coppola’s Kurtz these Horrors were the arms of the children inoculated for PolioThe New Epigraph• Eliot : impossibility to use Kurtz, then... • Nam sybillam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent, Sìbulla tì theleis, repondebat illa Apothanéin thélo. • WHY these lines can be the equivalent to Kurtz ‘Horror Horror’• Passage from Satyricon has nothing to do with the matter of the Poem • Trimalchione showinf off, Boasting what he has (Lands in Sicily, extraquality wines, etc. • And Even to have met himself the Sibyl • Of being of noble origin since those youngs (illi pueri) were initiated to occult rites connected with the Sibylian Books The Meaning of the Sibyl• Well.. • In the VI Book of Virgil’s Aeneid it is the Cuman Sibyl who gives the hero the  • ‘Golden Bough’ as a magic stick  • to descend to the Hell• Fraser : Sibyl : Golden Bough : Katabasis - Horror • Weston : Grail, Cup : Anabasis - Resurrection • 2 Books cited by Eliot and Coppola for Kurtz• Epigraph [Poem] Notes • Notes -> Epigraph -> Text • The Meaning is not given by the end of the poem (Shantih Shantih Shantih) BUT by the embedment of the text  • And further deferred toward other texts • Revealed through deferring• Implications • The sense of the Horror here is not given by the absence of meaning of life (birth copulation and death ...) • It is not an Horror Vacui, But a Horror Repleni • The Horror of Katabasis as the voluntary descent to the Hell• Thus, maybe ... • April is the cruelest of month because it brings Passion and Easter, Katabasis and Anabasis which are the substance of the poem • Reference to Prufrock : clivage given by ... • “I am Lazarus come from the dead, come back to tell you all / And I shall tell you all”Concluding• Production of Meaning by deferment • produces a hard real meaning  • a theological meaning • not a mere dispersionFurther• Marlow / Marlowe • Evil Angel at the moment of the death of Dr. Faustus “Now, Faustus, let thine eyes with Horror stare [Hell is discovered] • 3d Scholar reporting his death :”I heard him shriek and call aloud for help / At which self time the house seem’d all on fire • with dreadful horror of these damned fiendsIn Law• Kurtz descent to Hell // descent to the lawless state of exception • State where ‘things get confused’ man/God • When it becomes possible to establish a new LawHuman Rights• If even in war there are Human Rights  • then a real state of exception is avoided • Human central because otherwise Humans become mere ‘bare life’ • children’s arms piled, hacked off and piled • The horror of seeing humans for what they simply are : living bodiesLaw/Humans• It is the Law to dress up the bare life • transforming bodies into humans • Humans are not natural but legal • But Law is always built up around its void center as state of exception • Very Similar to Dante’s Earth : a Husk, a Packaging around the void cone of Hell

IN THE SHADOW OF AN ABSENT LAW. 
HUMAN RIGHTS AND MEANING 
FROM CONRAD TO COPPOLA, VIA ELIOT AND BROOKS

https://iris.unito.it/bitstream/2318/141424/1/IN%20THE%20SHADOW%20OF%20AN%20ABSENT%20LAW.pdf

IN THE SHADOW OF AN ABSENT LAW. HUMAN RIGHTS AND MEANING FROM CONRAD TO COPPOLA, VIA ELIOT AND BROOKS

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