The literary exception and the rule of law: a conversation on liberal democracy, populism, interpretation, law and poetry

Abstract

Johan van der Walt discusses key themes from his most recent book The Literary Exception and the Rule of Law Oxfordshire Routledge (2023) with Karin van Marle and Wessel le Roux. Van der Walt calls for a genre of law and literature scholarship that does not seek to soften or erase the differences between law and literature, as is typical in most law-as-literature scholarship, but that seeks to highlight the tensions between law and literature (represented by the avant garde poetry of Paul Celan and Paul Valéry). Van der Walt argues that the same event can give rise to a legal and a poetic response. Liberal society exists in the space that is opened up by these opposing trajectories. Liberal law must respect the non-poetic nature of its regulatory function and resist attempts, especially among nationalists and populists, to cure the existential inadequacy of law.