Call for Papers: Yale: Fictional Discourse In Legal Theory and Practice & Law and Fiction

From Erin Sheley:

Call for Papers: Yale: Fictional Discourse in Legal Theory and Practice (Conference Session 1)

After three years of fruitful collaboration, the Yale WHC Working Group “Fictionality: Law. Literature. Science. Interdisciplinary Approaches’ invites presentation proposals (25 minute presentation) for its concluding conference on May 20/21, 2015 at Yale University, New Haven, CT. A selection of  the conference’s papers will also be edited and published.  

The keynote address will be given by  Prof. Peter Brooks (Princeton/Georgetown Law).

The Conference will consist of two whole-day panels: one very specific on the role of Fictional Discourse in Legal Theory and Practice, and a second more open panel on the intersections and relations of Law and Fiction in general (a more traditional law and literature session) that is open to inquiries of all sorts. Each session will also have a session keynote, the speakers (Yale Law School Faculty) are still unconfirmed but will be determined shortly.

This Call for Paper is only for the FIRST SESSION (‘FICTIONAL DISCOURSE IN LEGAL THEORY AND PRACTICE’)- a separate Call for Papers will be posted for Session 2 (“Law and Fiction”).

This whole-day session will address the question of fiction in law from theoretical and dogmatic standpoints. What function and form may have fictions in the legal world? What parts do they play in legal codifications, in trials or as part of legal thinking and legal theory? Questions of the relations of Law to Reality in general are as welcome as more specific enquiries (eg. the nature and purpose of the fictio iuris).

Papers could address:

-          Fictions as part of laws and codes / Fictional quality of Laws, legal examples, etc.

-          Questions of legal semiotics (Truth, Reality of the Law, legal concepts etc.); Law and Language

-          Question of Legal Interpretation and the search for a fixed or variable “truth” (Originalism, etc.)

-          The nature and the reality of the Law

-          Law as Literature

-          Law as Fiction (LaRue, etc.)

-          Fictions as part of trials and investigation (eg. the story of the case as a fictional construct)

-          Fiction(s) as part of legal thinking

-          Fiction(s) as part of legal instruction

-          Relations of Law and Reality

-           The question and nature of the fictio juris/ fictio legis (legal fiction)

-          Historical or theoretical inquiries (e.g. Benthams Theory of Fiction, Locke, Fuller, etc.)

-          Reception and application of philosophical theories /literary theory on truth and fiction in the field of law (John Searle, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, Michael Riffaterre, Niklas Luhmann, Gregory Bateson, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Heinz von Foerster, Roman Ingarden, Gans, Gottfried Gabriel, Marie-Laure Ryan, Wolfgang Iser)

-          Deconstruction and the Law

-          Constructivism and the Law

-          Neuroscience and the Law

Please send a short abstract of maximum 500 words (single spaced) and short academic resume (not more than 5 lines) that need to be both put on one SINGE PAGE, preferably as PDF, to hans.lind@yale.edu The Email Subject needs to be: ‘Session 1 CFP’ followed by your lastname and the title of your proposal (for automatic filtering purposes).

The deadline is March 30, due to the tight timeframe however, early submissions might have a higher chance to get accepted.

Hans Lind, Ph.D.

Email: hans.lind@yale.edu

Call for Papers: Yale: Law and Fiction (Conference Session 2)

After three years of fruitful collaboration, the Yale WHCWG “Fictionality: Law. Literature. Science. Interdisciplinary Approaches’ invites proposals (25 minute presentation) for its concluding conference on May 20/21, 2015 at Yale University, New Haven, CT. A selection of  the conference’s papers will also be edited and published.  

The keynote address will be given by  Prof. Peter Brooks (Princeton/Georgetown Law/Yale).

The Conference will consist of two whole-day sessions: one very specific on the role of Fictional Discourse in Legal Theory and Practice, and a second more open panel on the intersections and relations of Law and Fiction in general (a more traditional law and literature session) that is open to inquiries of all sorts. Each session will also have a session keynote, the speakers and respondents (Yale Law School Faculty/Yale Faculty) are still unconfirmed but will be determined shortly.

This Call for Paper is only for the SECOND SESSION (‘LAW AND FICTION”) - a separate Call for Papers will be posted for Session 1 (“Fictional Discourse in Legal Theory and Practice”).

We welcome a great variety of approaches on the intersection of law and fiction.

We especially would welcome:

-          legal narrative techniques and form in fiction

-          fiction as legal experiment: fictional stories that could serve as legal thought experiments

-          law in literature: what do we learn about the law in novels and drama (its nature, its status, its relation to truth, its value, its discontents)

-          fiction (novels, drama, etc.) as a forum/means to discuss the questions and discontents of the law (e.g. Franz Kafka’s “The Trial”, “Before the Law”, “The judgement”, “The penal Colony”)

-          fictional quality of law, trials, etc. as a topic of storytelling (in novels, drama, etc.)

-          "novelists and poets" as the principal teachers of law (John Wigmore, Benjamin Cardozo; Robert Weisberg)

Please send a short abstract of maximum 500 words (single spaced) and short academic resume (not more than 5 lines) that need to be both put on one SINGE PAGE, preferably as PDF, to hans.lind@yale.edu The Email Subject needs to be: ‘Session 2 CFP’ followed by your lastname and the title of your proposal (for automatic filtering purposes).

The deadline is March 30, due to the tight timeframe however, early submissions might have a higher chance to get accepted.

Hans Lind, Ph.D.

Email: hans.lind@yale.edu