My definition of justice is metamorphosis, a process that changes and grows one part at a time, through collective and forced experiences. Justice has often been defined through its ability to promote legal or systematic forms of judgement. Yet, through these last two semesters we have encountered Justice in the form of apologies, songs of reclamations, early theories, and plays that question how we should seek out justice. Justice has been transformed in this course through so many sources and opinions and convinced me that it is an undefined term. Justice has been the most effective when it was characterized uniquely as an action instead of trying to constrain its application through its definition. The first semester when I defined justice I imagined it as elements that built on top of each other, and I still agree with myself, but now I view justice as an ecosystem of facts that exist within and interact with each other rather than independent factors.
During the first semester Dr. Jankovic introduced us to various theoretical concepts and therosist. By analyzing Rawls, Kant, and Bentham early on, Professor Jankovic set a solid framework in which we could use to cross-reference different social constructs and conceptions of Justice. Rawls’ Social Contract Theory of Justice specifically stuck out to me. His thought experiment known as the veil of ignorance, places everyone under the presumption that they know nothing about their social standing or anyone else’s, leading them to make more ethical and equitable decisions about a new world. If Rawls is implying that justice is only achievable through the ignorance of our differences, what does that mean for other forms of justice that rely on individualism? In Unrest and Uncle Tom: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Bill T. Jones purposely brought forward historical questions of race, presenting its own form of justice through physicality and movement. These two forms of justice – one theoretical and the other performative–don’t seem complimentary, yet they could not exist without one another. The ignorance of race that Rawls proposes can’t exist if it wasn’t a conceptualized social structure to begin with, so by recognizing both perspectives justice becomes more tangible.
Over the last two semesters, Professor Boyer provided two parallel versions of justice for us to analyze. Through combinations of plays and court cases, we have seen extraordinary forms of justice. Initially presented in Sophocles’ Antigone and recently seen in Euripides Medea. The justice delivered in both of these plays are highly affective, driven by passions and moral obligations rather than a legal system. These plays rely on forces stronger than the government or law, but principles that are embedded throughout culture, through teaching or consistent practice. Professor Boyer would identify this as paideic forces. Whereas, the conversations around legal cases like McGirt v. Oklahoma during the first semester resulted in questions of jurisdiction. Second semester we also looked at Dobbs v. Jackson, which was decided using the 14th amendment due process clause. These cases are forms of imperial justice, a weaker force that doesn’t resonate as heavily from citizen to citizen. Here justice doesn’t only exist one dimensionally, but as two sides of one coin, imperial justice should hopefully reflect collective paideic forces.
This year in humanities Professor Bory, has presented justice to us as a physical response, either innate or calculated, that occurs in reaction to our external environments. During the first semester we looked at Chroreopolitics and Movement by Andre Lepecki, which explores freedom and movement as intertwined elements. Through plenaries we explored chorepolicing, learning how even in our own lives we exhibit forms of being restricted. We even questioned to what extent our actions and choices are our own in relation to judicial enforcement. This second semester, we read David Gere’s chapter of Blood and Sweat, where dance and movement become active forms of protest for dancers in LGBTQ community. Gere’s writing shows how dancers used performance to reclaim their bodies, taking meaning away from the stereotypes about bodily fluids stemming from the AIDS epidemic. Lepecki and Gere’s writing ties together neatly since they both motivate people to become conscious about what media they consume and how they choose to physically express themselves through the world. Through this reclamation of ourselves and rejection of policed movements we can begin to scope out innovative forms of justice.
Professor Lipsker took a historic approach to teaching us about justice, he introduced us to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee that followed the end of Apartheid in South Africa through a documentary named Long Night’s Journey Into Day. Reconciliation is a non-legal process and involves forgiveness and apologies. The perpetrators would give testimony and seek amnesty from those affected. This mirrors Professor Lipsker’s plenary second semester about monuments and national apologies. Monuments to the Unthinkable by Clint Smith preceded this lecture, Smith examines Holocaust memorials in Germany in relation to America’s unreconciled past with slavery. He brings to light the importance of nations building collective memory in order to properly heal. These two forms of reparations are not necessarily judicial, but they both slowly restore societies trying to heal from traumatic past even after the legal proceedings.
These last two semesters, Professor Pyle has given us a diverse profile of songs, dances, and text in order to interpret justice. For Professor Pyle understanding justice through a singular format would be irresponsible and insufficient, when trying to determine a definition of justice. In the first semester we read W.E.B DuBois’ Of Our Spiritual Strivings, introducing us to double-consciousness. This is an experience that formed a sense of solidarity amongst African Americans creating justice through shared culture and racial experiences. In second semester, we read Incognegro by Mat Johnson, a comic about a passing Black man who captures the names of White supremacist and lynched Black indivduals. This was a fictional form of justice, but one that resonated with me because it brings a sense of hope that for me signifies justice as a prevailing principle in the endl. Black people in the United States are still compensating and existing under a system that was designed against them and only continues to find new ways to reform slavery, so many forms of justice are found through shared moments of cultural unity and protest.
Professor Bowles was new to our Humanities course this semester and brought classics such as Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo and Maroons: Black Girlhood in Plain Sight by LeConté Dill. Barracoon is a story that is captured not to downplay or advocate for enslaved people, but serves as a legitimate narrative of what happened to one man through the Atlantic Slave Trade. This story humanizes and tells the truth of someone who sought to recreate a life away from home. Gill’s reading builds off of this and discusses the act of marronage as a form of cultural work within the Black community, which has been essential to its prolonged survival in America. Justice is an active action within these two scenarios because it is present in the cultural work and community building done by Black people in a world that denies and ridicules Black culture and existence.
Work Cited
Bory, Allison. “Choreographing Power.” Humanitites 103, 3 October 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.
Bowles, Laurian. “Maroonage.” Humanities 104, 4 February 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Bowles, Laurian. “Refusal as Agency.” Humanities 104, 1 April 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Boyer, Patricio. “Justice and Obligation.” Humanities 103, 17 September 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.
Boyer, Patricio. “Justice and Sovereignty.” Humanities 103, 31 October 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.
Boyer, Patricio. “Revenge and Intersubjectivity.” Humanities 104, 30 January 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Boyer, Patricio. “The End(s) of History.” Humanities 104, 27 March 2025, Davidson College. Section.
Lipsker, Yaakov. “From Nuremberg to “Nuremberg.”: The Afterlives of the IMT.” Humanities 103, 17 October 2024, Davidson College. Section.
Lipsker, Yaakov. “Apartheid and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.” Humanities 103, 29 October 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.
Lipsker, Yaakov. “Monuments and Memory.” Humanities 104, 20 March 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Marcus, Pyle. “Music and Social Justice.” Humanities 103, 7 November 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.
Marcus, Pyle. ” Reckoning with the Past/Imagining a Future: Bill T. Jones’s Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land.” Humanities 104, 11 February 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Marcus, Pyle. “Cruel Alternatives.” Humanities 104, 25 February 2025, Davidson College. Section
Marcus, Pyle. “HIV/AIDs and…” Humanities 104, 24 April 2025, Davidson College. Lecture.
Marija, Jankovic. “Justice and Equality, distributive justice, Rawls’ difference principle.” Humanities 103, 10 September 2024, Davidson College. Lecture.