Course directory

KDEC 9310 - Legal aesthetics under technological conditions

KDEC 9310 · Fall semester 2026-2027

Language of tuition
English
Course type
Cours séminaire
Number of hours
24
Credits
4

Information

Description

The theme of the course is legal aesthetics under current technological conditions. The term

aesthetics refers to the ways of sensing and sense-making involved in legal decisions and

controversies. Courts and judges have their ways of analysing and comparing visual material.

And so do plaintiffs, defendants and experts. Importantly, legal aesthetics are framed and

challenged by rapid technological developments that bring new kinds of evidence and question

legal categories. The course intends to engage critically with the set of aesthetic strategies

nurturing the legal sensorium as well as with the techno-social networks that sustain them.

The main objective is to acquire knowledge about the ways of seeing mobilised by legal actors in

order to increase reflexivity about legal practice.

Prerequisites

No prior knowledge is required

Teaching format

The teaching format combines lectures, collective discussions of texts, oral presentations and group work.

Assessment

  • An oral presentation realised through group work (mid-course) 35%
  • An individual interactive essay whose form makes use of the methods discussed in the course (end of

course) 65 %

Readings

Main readings 5

  1. Burk, D. L. (2020). Thirty-Six Views of Copyright Authorship, by Jackson Pollock. Houston Law Review, 58(2), 263.

  2. Cellard, L. (2024). Theaters of Algorithmic Transparency and the Politics of Exemplarity. Science, Technology, & Human Values. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439241294008

    Read online

  3. Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional Vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606–633. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1994.96.3.02a00100

  4. MacKenzie, A., & Munster, A. (2019). Platform Seeing: Image Ensembles and Their Invisualities. Theory, Culture & Society, 36(5), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276419847508

    Read online

  5. Vismann, C., & Winthrop-Young, G. (2008). From the Bureau to Data Protection, in Files: Law and media technology / Cornelia Vismann ; translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young. Stanford University Press. (pp 123-160)

    Borrow

Further readings 5

  1. Aradau, C. (2017). Assembling (Non)Knowledge: Security, Law, and Surveillance in a Digital World. International Political Sociology, 11(4), 327–342. https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olx019

    Read online

  2. Chun, W. H. K. (2011). Programmed Visions, Software and Memory. MIT Press.

    Read online

  3. Gaines, J. M. (1999). Contested Culture: The Image, the Voice, and the Law. The University of North Carolina Press.

  4. Latour, B. (2010). The making of law: An ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat / by Bruno Latour ; translated by Marina Brilman and Alain Pottage ; revised by the author. Polity.

  5. Tagg, J. (2009). The Disciplinary Frame: Photographic Truths and the Capture of Meaning. University of Minnesota Press.

Teaching units

Unit no.Unit type Teaching unitsTeachers Number of hoursCredits
20441Cours séminaire Legal aesthetics under technological conditions Nicolas MALEVE244

Teachers

  • Nicolas MALEVE