An interdisciplinary analysis of the ways in which symbolic acts create social norms, Power and Legitimacy is an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship on law and literature. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu, Anne Quéma demonstrates the effect of symbolic violence on the creation of social and political legitimacy.

Examining modern jurisprudence theory, statutory law, and the family within the modern Gothic novel, Quéma shows how the forms and effects of political power transform as one shifts from discourse to discourse. An impressive integration of the scholarship in these three fields, Power and Legitimacy is a thought-provoking analysis of the basis of power and the law.