New Directions in Law and Literature

Abstract

After the heyday of the law and literature movement in the 1970s and 1980s, many wondered whether it would retain vitality and influence. Yet in recent years, scholarship in law and literature continues to flourish, broadening into a number of new directions. This collection of essays by twenty-two prominent scholars from literature departments as well as law schools showcases the vibrancy of recent work in the field, at the same time as it takes stock of many of the new directions shaping the interdiscipline. In so doing, New Directions in Law and Literature furnishes an overview of where the field has been, its recent past, and its potential futures. Some of the essays examine the innovative methodological approaches that helped to enlarge the field; among these are concern for globalization, the integration of insights from history and political theory, the application of new theoretical models from affect studies and queer theory, and the expansion of study beyond the text to performance and the image. Other essays instead grapple with particular intersections between law and literature, whether in copyright law, or competing visions of alternatives to marriage, or the role of ornament in the law’s construction of racialized bodies. Together, the essays in this volume offer a diverse, evolving portrait of the wide variety of work in law and literature, and in the process they likewise chart new lines of inquiry that beginning scholars might pursue.

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