Seminar: ‘Law and Literature in Action'

The seminar entitled ‘Law and Literature in Action’ will take place on Thursday afternoon, November 23rd, from 15.30-18.00 in the University College Groningen (room 121). The event is organised on behalf of the newly created Department of Transboundary Legal Studies. Students are welcome to attend.

Speakers at the event are experts in Law and Literature Dr Marielle Matthee, Guest Lecturer at Centre for Linguistics (Leiden University), and Dr Maria Green, Visiting Professor at Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Lund, Sweden).

The programme is as follows:

15:30–15:40 — an introductory word by Pauline Westerman and/or Marcel Brus;

15:40–16:10 — presentation by Marielle Matthee;

16:10–16:30 — questions/discussion;

16:30–17:00 — presentation by Maria Green;

17:00–17:20 — questions/discussion;

17:20–18:00 — drinks.

Dr. Marielle Matthee will present on the topic “The Dialogue Between Law and Literature and Its Role in a Changing World”. Societies change, and legal systems once considered legitimate may no longer provide the justice they aimed at. This presentation will concentrate on how literature as a voice out of society can reveal the ‘blind spots’ in legal systems and explores how it may help lawyers and legal scholars to stay critical. Part of the presentation will take a closer look at Saturday by Ian McEwan (a so-called post 9/11 novel) as contemporary example.

Prof. Maria Green will take a narrower perspective and will address the issues of "The Art and Necessity of Paying Attention: Law, Literature, and Human Rights”. The main focus of her presentation will be that law, like literature, is made of language and driven by narrative. Can certain ways of reading literature help lawyers to increase their awareness of the uses of both in legal contexts, particularly when the moral stakes are high?

With kind regards,
Brigit Toebes and Kostiantyn Gorobets