Law, literature, interpretation

Abstract

This special edition features some of the papers delivered, and conversations held, at the 2024 Research Unit for Legal and Constitutional Interpretation and Theory (“RULCI”) Colloquium. RULCI, since its inception in the late 1990s, has been concerned about the extent to which law and – already in its early days – constitutionalism run the risk of becoming stale, overly satisfied and complacent, resulting in a failure both to pay attention to its complicity in the creation of violence and to remain interested in exploring ways to challenge or curb it. The theme of the 2024 Colloquium, and hence of this special edition, was ‘Law, literature and interpretation’ In versions of Western legal theory/ jurisprudence the relation between law and literature has been explored over many years raising questions about the multiple and varied ways in which the relationship between law and literature could be interpreted. The papers delivered during the colloquium - and also those included in the special edition – do not explicitly recall the history of law and literature scholarship. In the same vein our aim, here, is not to provide a detailed history. Rather, we recall a few features to provide some background or context to the theme at hand. It may be important to mention how, since the early work of James Boyd White, who is regarded as one of the founders of law and literature scholarship, the notion of the ‘literary imagination’ has been central to work done in the field.2 White, for example argued that literature should be studied as part of legal study for what it has to say about law and adjudication.