Law in Gotham City. A new publication by Daniel Damler

Gotham City. Architekturen des Ausnahmezustands, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag 2022

The world over, Gotham City – Batman’s domain – stands as a symbol of permanent political crisis, the reign of crime, the unimaginable government failure but also of an unconventional civil society and the triumph of republican heroism. To this extent, the fictitious metropole is also a legal-historical and legal-theoretical phenomenon; the Batman saga transports messages concerning core issues of constitutional law, political philosophy, rule of the people and dictatorship. Since Gotham is primarily a visual phenomenon, the cinematic architecture is what stands out. The scenographic features play a key role in the embedding of certain conceptions in our collective consciousness. The superhero infrastructure (Batcave, Wayne Manor) and other canonical locations in the saga are the visual signet of the state of emergency and constitute the compelling spaces of collective memory.