Conference paper

Publication year: 2010

Pages: 338-364

Journal: Law & Literature

Volume number: 22

Issue number: 2

ISSN: 1535-685X

eISSN: 1541-2601

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1525/lal.2010.22.2.338

Conference: John-Jay- College-of-Criminal-Justice-Biennial-Literature-and-Law Conference

Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group

Abstract: 
This essay names differences between stories told in American, British, and German legal cultures in an effort to de-Americanize prevailing modes of Law and Literature scholarship. It quibbles with the reliance on American models of scholarship in derivative European Law and Literature research as well as with much American work. The latter assumes the universality of the adversarial trial system, the ubiquity of the debate about how to interpret the Constitution, and the variety of social and civil rights issues such interpretation entails as well as the common law tradition of arguing through precedent. To explore the limitations inherent in prevailing modes of scholarship, the essay compares the story lines that inflect three nations' modes of conducting Law and Literature. It concludes by describing scholarly dead ends in Law and Literature as well as points of expansion. The latter include the move to regard law as a cultural practice and to embrace the visual and the aesthetic in a more generous notion of the literary.

Harvard Citation style: Olson, G. (2010) De-Americanizing Law and Literature Narratives: Opening Up the Story, Law & Literature, 22(2), pp. 338-364. https://doi.org/10.1525/lal.2010.22.2.338

APA Citation style: Olson, G. (2010). De-Americanizing Law and Literature Narratives: Opening Up the Story. Law & Literature. 22(2), 338-364. https://doi.org/10.1525/lal.2010.22.2.338