Detective novels, courtroom drama, legal drama TV shows, the Western: The list of genres in which ‘the law’ – law firms and lawyers, institutions of the law such as courts, representatives of the law such as marshals, sheriffs, the FBI, or the police – plays a crucial role in and for cultural production could be extended. In addition to these specific genres for which ‘the law’ is constitutive, the law, legal frameworks and institutions, court rulings as well as more abstract questions regarding the link between the law and justice are crucial for other types of fictional texts, too. The field of law and culture investigates the multiple representations of the law in literature and film (“law in literature”) and the way in which the law and court rulings can be read productively by way of literary studies methodologies (“law as literature”). The field has also paid close attention to the role cultural production plays for the law (“literature in law”), pragmatically as an object of potential regulation, e.g. by censorship, but also as an educational device, a ‘school of empathy’ e.g. for judges (Nussbaum, Hunt) or an instrument in drawing attention to human rights violations (Slaughter). Last but not least, more recently scholars look at how literature and film critically contribute to broader societal discourses on justice and the role of the law as an instrument of social oppression as well as of emancipation.
In this Übung, we will look at some of the theoretical developments in the field of law and literature and apply the questions raised in this debate to selected films, TV series episodes, and literary texts. In particular, we will look at the ways by which fiction, drama, and film negotiates questions of social justice and its relation to the law as well as of racialized and gendered representations (e.g. of law enforcement, criminality, court processes) and ask what kind of contribution these texts (in the widest sense) can make to broader discussions about the understanding of law and society.
Students are asked to please get a copy of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1953) und Rachel Kushner’s recent novel Mars Room (2018). Additional readings will be provided on digicampus.
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