Mark West, Nippon Life Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan Law School, will be speaking in the anthropology department’s colloquium series on Friday, March 23rd. We will read one of his earlier books, Law in Everyday Japan, to have a greater sense of the context he’s examining.

His presentation abstract:

A comprehensive body of evidence -- 2,700 Japanese court opinions – shows a Japan full of emotion but nevertheless characterized by a presupposed absence of physical and emotional intimacy, affection, and interconnectedness in personal relationships. Love usually appears as a tragic, overwhelming emotion associated with jealousy, suffering, heartache, and death.

The cases also show that love is inextricably linked with law. Japanese judges frequently opine on whether a person is in love, what other emotions a person is feeling, and whether those emotions are appropriate for the situation. When judges eschew formalistic legal analysis and conduct a more visceral examination of emotions, they highlight the illusory nature of the line between what we think of as “law” and what we think of as “non-law” in an area that is central to being human.