From law and literature to legality and affect : Greta Olson

9780191947452

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2022

240 pages: illustrations(colour)

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From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect represents a sustained argument for the continued vitality of Law and Literature. It argues that the traditional methods of Law and Literature can be combined with work in critical media studies, affect theory, and cultural narratology to address topics such as ethnonationalism, anti-immigration sentiments, and systemic racism in nations like Germany and the United States. Taking stock of the pluralization and diversification of the field at 50 years from a comparative standpoint, the book understands Law and Literature as a political project. This has a precedence in inaugural Law and Literature texts like Jacob Grimm's Von der Poesie im Recht (On the Poetry in Law) from 1815/16, which imagines an alternative legal order grounded in the unity of law, poetic language, and feeling. The political thrust of Law and Literature continues up into the present with the arts of BlackLivesMatter documenting and resisting police violence against Black people. Law and Literature offers keys for understanding how legal identities are constructed, for analyzing how legal texts are formally constructed, and for comprehending how cultural-legal issues are mediated using affective means. Using cultural, medial, affect theoretical and narrative analyses of law, a revitalized Law and Literature offers a set of methods and theories with which to address the most pressing current issues.

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November 07, 2022