World Literature and Law

The study of law and literature has become global, and now encompasses legal traditions and literary histories from across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Paradigms such as international law and literature, postcolonialism, and the Global South have further added to the richness of the field. As law and literature takes root in different regions, and as its intellectual and geographical terrain expands, there is a need to re-examine its foundational assumptions, theoretical paradigms, and interpretative praxes. What can we learn from established practices, and what new conceptual frameworks should we develop, to engage with the world’s increasingly diverse jurisprudences, literatures, and cultures? What, in short, might the study of world literature and law look like?

This collection maps the global turn in law and literature, foregrounds under-represented regions, and charts new directions for the twenty-first century. Featuring case studies from Argentina, China, India, Nigeria, and South Africa among others, contributors revisit jurisprudence and aesthetics; trace colonial genealogies of policing and borders; interrogate sexuality, gender and reproduction; and stage conversations between legal reasoning, narrative form and visual culture. Synthesising comparative, postcolonial and international perspectives, the volume surfaces fresh conceptual tools and agendas for research and teaching.

This book will be essential reading for scholars and students of law, literature, comparative literature, legal theory, socio-legal studies and postcolonial studies. The essays in this collection were first published in various issues of Law & Literature.