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Cornelia Vismann, "Cancels: On the Making of Law in Chanceries", Law and Critique VII/2 [1996], 131-151: Chanceries could be perceived as the other side of Law. Located underneath the threshold of the symbolic they occupy the imaginary sphere of the juridical. As such they produce the Law, law's visibility or evidence. In other words: cancels, textual bars as well as spatial grids, are the medium and the means of erecting the symbolic order of law. By cancelling the draft, a precept emerges and makes the Law stable. Thus the heterogenious and multiple field of the juridical is demarcated. A point for universal reference is gained. It is not difficult to recognise the Lacanian signifiant barré at work in the operation of cancels. The master-cancellor however is Meleville's Bartleby, the Scrivener. He cancels whatever he can grip until he reaches the bottom of all cancels. - "Asleep with kings and counselors" as the end of the story goes. In prolongation of Gilles Deleuze's reading of the story one could analyse Bartleby's legendary and ever unredeemed speech act ("I would prefer not to") as the formula for all cancels. By the reckless re-entry of the formula into the chancery itself, the chancellor/clerk begins to cancel himself. And it is only through this dysfunction that the function of chanceries for the making of law becomes clear. e-mail: vismann@euv-frankfurt-o.de

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