Law & Literature

Recommended Prerequisites

Theoretical legal acknowledge acquired in the 1st. cycle of studies is required, as well as reading of legal sources in  the main European languages.

Teaching Methods

Exposition, exploration and discussion of themes starting from recommended and accompanied readings, in seminar, and consequent oral and written presentation of written commentaries of selected texts, and elaboration of autonomous works under orientation, with oral presentation.

Learning Outcomes

In this course, different paths will be covered, related to different comprehensions of critical analysis of the cultural structuring of the relationship between law and literature and of the mutual narrative and normative contributions, which constitute the experience of the constitution of law and the intentionality of legal thinking, in a critical-reflexive concentration. 

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

I) Law & Literature in the context of Law &… Movements. Beyond the linguistic turn, is there a literary turn? And is it a challenge posed by Law & Economics? (The counterpoint “economic man” /“literary woman”). The (un)easy relationship between Law &Humanities. Fighting against formalism and pragmatism.

II) Discussing some relevant “grids”: law in /as/of  literature, literary /narrative /interpretive jurisprudences,   humanist / hermeneutic/ narrative..... law-and-lits, intentio auctoris/…operis/…lectoris.

III) Exploring some major contributions in their connections with the previous grids: from Boyd White to Manderson,  from Fish to Nussbaum. The specific “place” of Dworkin. 

IV) Law in literature: some major examples (from Sophocles to Huxley, from Shakespeare to Atwood)

V) Beyond Law&lit: Law and performance, Law & aesthetics (the jusaesthetic argument). The attention to hetero-referential discourses and its indispensability in a time of plurality and fragmentation.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Research work: 100.0%

Bibliography

-Minda, Gary (1995. Postmodern Legal Movements. Law and Jurisprudence at Century’s End, New York /London: New York University Press.

-Goodrich, Peter (2021) Advanced introduction to law and literature, Cheltenham, Elgar

-Linhares, J M A (2010) "Law in/as Literature as an Alternative Humanistic Discourse…"  In Mittica, M. P. (ed.) M Law and Literature. A Discussion on Purposes and Method. pp. 22-42, available in http://amsacta.unibo.it/5553/1/1_Dossier_Law_and_Literature%20_IVR_WS_Proceedings_2010.pdf.

-Duarte, Brisa .P. (2022) New (Post-?) Textualities and the Autonomy Claim: Rethinking Law’s Quest for Normative Convergence in Dialogue with Law and Aesthetics’ Heterodoxy. Int J Semiot Law 35, 231–258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-021-09844-8

-Linhares J.M.A. (2018) From Brave New World to Island:. In: Kabashima H., Liu SI., Luetge C., de Prada García A. (eds) The Idea of Justice in Literature. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-21996-3_8