This time will Associate Professor at Lit. His. and head of the PhD program Art, Literature and Cultural Studies Karen-Margrethe Simonsen talk about her relationship with Law an Literature.

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen in Relation to Literature and Law: An Unhappy Love Affair?

In literature, lawyers are devious manipulators, if not downright evil monsters. In real life, many lawyers are in love with literature and die schönen Künste. They  look at literature for the aesthetics whereas literary scholars look at law to understand the concept of legal justice that are so salient in many classical literary texts. It is an asymmetrical and forever unhappy love affair, though changes may be on the way. I will talk about the use of literature by law, the use of law by literary scholars, about the problems that haunt interdisciplinarity and about the ‘new’ field of forensic aesthetics that is a quickly expanding field in light of modern atrocities. I will give examples from a book I am currently writing on Slavery and the Forensic Theatricality of Human Rights in the Spanish Empire. Man or Citizen? Law has given me both personal and professional challenges. It has helped me ask different academic questions than I would otherwise have done. It has been a fascinating academic detour (with many unexpected meetings) that has brought me to the core of my current interests but to a certain extent it has also sidetracked my career.

If interested, write to Mikkel Nørregaard Jørgensen on mikkelnj@cc.au.dk to get a zoom-link