Law, Literature, and Human Rights

Contemporary constant circulation and reshaping of human rights in the social imagination make it more and more difficult to grasp all their manifestations and all the echoes they leave in both law and literature.

This summer school aims to engage with law and literature not only to consider how these fields treat human rights and engage in human rights discourse, but also to explore how human rights alter the face of both literature and law, particularly through modifying their aesthetic forms. In this sense, the school strives to shift the accent from a sentimental kind of discourse about human rights within Law and Literature to the comprehension of how we talk about human rights and how this manner of talking strengthens or weakens them.

The programme combines Law in Literature and Law as Literature discussions, showing their inevitable interlacement. The format of the summer school is based on the intense interaction between students and teachers. This interaction will be achieved by virtue of linking of all themes to particular legal or literary texts and their thorough discussion.

The programme will combine lectures and discussions in small groups. Starting with the introductory presentation on current Law and Literature tendencies in human rights domain, we will move on towards more specific themes, such as censorship and freedom of expression, precarization of labour, gender and human rights, etc., which will be considered through specific literary and legal texts. These thematic anchors will not only serve as subjects of a particular text to be discussed but will also be examined as driving forces for the formation of new forms of expression both in law and literature. Thus, we will examine how a rhetoric, narrative and genres are being changed within a human rights discourse in both law and literature.

The school seeks for scientific cooperation and also offers master students the opportunity to explore the possibilities of Law and Literature research in Groningen.