Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law

We want to thank all participants of the 2017 Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Studies of the Law for an invigorating week and an inspiring final symposium. It is always a great honor to host such talented young researchers and this year certainly has been no exception. This was never clearer than during the final symposium (here is the program), which featured insightful presentations and discussions on topics as wide ranging as ‘legal performance art,’ land access and rights, and the legal logics employed by civil rights programs.

The symposium concluded this year’s OSI and this means we would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the convenors: Marianne Constable, Danilo Mandic, Cristina S. Martinez, Sabine N. Meyer, Richard Perry, Beth Piatote, and Leti Volpp. Our thanks also go out to all the student assistants who kept things running smoothly, Irina Brittner for her tireless dedication, was well as to our sponsors and collaborating institutions.

We hope to see all of you again, soon!

We are happy to announce that Leti Volpp will be returning to this year’s Summer Institute, sharing her expertise in the field of law and the humanities with the students.

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We are happy to announce the keynote lecture of this year’s Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law on Friday, August 8, at 7 p.m. in room 11/212. Prof. Leti Volpp will speak on “The Indigenous as Alien – The Settler Contract and a Nation of Immigrants.” Together with the mayoral reception in Osnabrück’s city hall prior to the lecture, Volpp’s keynote address constitutes the official opening of the 2014 OSI.

Leti Volpp is Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice, University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on citizenship, migration, culture, gender, and identity.

Abstract: Immigration law, as it is taught, studied, and researched in the United States, imagines away the fact of preexisting indigenous populations. Why is this the case?  I argue, first, that this elision reflects and reproduces how the field narrates space, time, and membership. But despite this disappearance from the field, Indians have figured in immigration law, and thus, to understand what this has meant for indigenous populations, I describe the neglected legal history of the treatment of American Indians under U.S. immigration and citizenship law. I then return to explain why Indians have disappeared from immigration law through an investigation of the relationship between We the People, the “settler contract,” and the “nation of immigrants.”

We are proud to announce that Karen-Margrethe Simonsen will be joining the 2014 Summer Institute faculty and will be co-convening the workshop  “The Humanities and Human Rights” with Prof. Joseph Slaughter.

Karen-Margrethe Simonsen is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Research Group “Humanistic Studies of Human Rights” at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research focuses on law and literature, justice in classic literary texts, world literature, and human rights. Between 2005 and 2007 and again between 2008 and 2009, Simonsen was Director of the Nordic Network for Law and Literature, a research project which assembles leading scholars of Legal and Literary Studies in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to explore law and legality in modern culture. Since 2007, Simonsen has been Associate Member of the Institute for Law and Humanities at the Cardozo Law School, New York.

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We are happy to announce a special gathering for OSI staff, conveners, and alumni at the 17th annual convention of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities (ASLCH)  in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday, March 11, 2014.

We have two events planned:

1. Whoever is up for a guided tour of the historic campus should meet with us at the main entrance of the law school at 5:30pm. After the tour, we will take the bus to downtown Charlottesville to have dinner together…

2. If you want to join us for dinner, please meet us at the The Whiskey Jar in downtown Charlottesville at 7pm. This is a restaurant/pub that specializes in regional cuisine (“new Southern”), local food suppliers, and, as the name implies, in whiskey.

We are excited to see as many of you as possible!