Fictional Discourse and the Law

Drawing on insights from literary theory and analytical philosophy, this book analyzes the intersection of law and literature from the distinct and unique perspective of fictional discourse.

Pursuing an empirical approach, and using examples that range from Victorian literature to the current judicial treatment of rap music, the volume challenges the prevailing fact–fiction dichotomy in legal theory and practice by providing a better understanding of the peculiarities of legal fictionality, while also contributing further material to fictional theory’s endeavor to find a transdisciplinary valid criterion for a definition of fictional discourse. Following the basic presumptions of the early law-as-literature movement, past approaches have mainly focused on textuality and narrativity as the common denominators of law and literature, and have largely ignored the topic of fictionality. This volume provides a much needed analysis of this gap.

The book will be of interest to scholars of legal theory, jurisprudence and legal writing, along with literature scholars and students of literature and the humanities.

Hans Jochen Lind (Ph.D. Yale University) is a Lecturer and, since 2003, Attorney-at-Law. He teaches German Literature, Theatre Studies and Media Studies at Yale University and at Vienna University’s Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies. He was a Fulbright Scholar (2004–2005) and a Giamatti-Fellow at Yale University (2005–2006), and later acted as coordinator of the Yale Whitney Humanities Center’s working group "Fictionality – Interdisciplinary Approaches. Law – Literature – Science" (2010–2013). Legal clerking included the 5th Civil Chamber of Appeal (Law Clerk to Presiding Judge Basel).