POLITICS AND ETHICS IN CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY - A READING OF BLANCHOT THE-MOST-HIGH

This essay offers both a critique of the theory and practice of crimin ology and an alternative programme via a sketch of a cultural criminol ogy utilising cultural and literary analysis. The first part of the es say calls for the problematisation of the issues of value and represen tation in the criminological project and offers a competing account of the theoretical basis of the project of criminoIogy based upon a cult ural politics of difference and the ethics of radical alterity. The se cond part of the essay is a demonstration of how this theoretical basi s might operate in practice through a ''cultural criminological'' read ing of Maurice Blanchot's novel The Most High (1948, 1996). This novel is an account of the relationship between language and transgression in a totalitarian society at ''the end of history''. An alteration in the discursive practices of the criminological project premised upon a competing theoretical perspective suggests that criminology (specific ally the relation between law and transgression, deviancy and regulati on) can become an important element in explanations regarding the orga nisation and disorganisation of contemporary urban culture utilising t he strengths of its prior application (specifically narratology) and a bandoning its fear of culture.