Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law

We are happy to announce Ted Laros as a member of the OSI 2024 faculty! Ted is an assistant professor affiliated with the Department of Technology, Media and Culture of the Open University of the Netherlands. His research interests include world literature (as a theoretical concept), the sociology of literature/culture, and the relationship between literature/culture and law. He is currently working on a historical sociological study of the puge of the Dutch literary field after World War II (forthcoming with Amsterdam UP in 2025). Key concepts within this study are the responsibility of the writer and the autonomy of literature (especially vis-à-vis the political and juridical fields). Next to this he is co-editing (together with Jaco Barnard-Naudé and Sauleha Kamal) a special issue on “World Literature and Human Rights” for Journal of World Literature (forthcoming in 2026). Ted will convene a workshop with Cassandra Falke on questions of Literature and Human Rights.

Among his publications in the area of law and literature/culture are: Brigitte Adriaensen, Andrew Bricker, Alberto Godioli & Ted Laros, ed., Humor and the Law: Laughter as Critique/The Limits of Laughter, special issue of Law, Culture and the Humanities (forthcoming); Brigitte Adriaensen, Andrew Bricker, Alberto Godioli & Ted Laros, ed., Humor and the Law: The Difficulty of Judging Jests, special issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, vol. 35, no. 3, 2022, pp. 295-508; Ted Laros, Literature and the Law in South Africa, 1910-2010: The Long Walk to Artistic Freedom. The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities. Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2018 (Open Access edition 2020).

We are happy to announce Cassandra Falke as a member of the OSI 2024 faculty! Cassandra is a Professor of English Literature at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, where she also leads the Interdisciplinary Phenomenology research group. She has written widely on romanticism, literary theory, phenomenology and representations of violence, with a recent focus on human rights and readerly responsibility in historical fiction. Cassandra will convene a workshop with Ted Laros on questions of Literature and Human Rights.

She has published two monographs and has two more forthcoming. Literature by the Working Classes: English Autobiography, 1820-1848 (2013) uncovers innovative approaches to life narration among a neglected body of working-class literature. The Phenomenology of Love and Reading (2017) reconsiders the ethics of reading in light of radically intersubjective understandings of personhood in French phenomenology. Global Human Rights Fiction, forthcoming in 2024, describes an emergent genre of historical fiction that rewrites political violence from 1948 to now in light of the hopes and failures of post-World War Two human rights law. Wise Passiveness: Phenomenologies of Receptivity in British Romantic Poetry, due out the following year, explores poetic descriptions of receptivity as precursors to phenomenological conceptualizations of self-becoming in the world. Also in 2024-2025, she will be working on a project called The Reader as Witness: Situated Responsibility and Fictional Histories of Violence, with support from a fellowship at Cornell University ́s Society for the Humanities. Prior work has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the Joint Committee of Nordic Research Councils, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the US Embassy of Norway. Her editorial work includes two special issues and four edited collections, most recently Interpreting Violence: Narrative, Ethics and Hermeneutics (2023).

We are happy to announce Leila Neti as a member of the OSI 2024 faculty! Leila is the Irma and Jay Price Professor of English at Occidental College. She specializes in Victorian literature, contemporary Anglophone literature, and law and literature. Leila will convene a workshop with Peter Schneck and Laura Zander on the topic of interdisciplinarity.

Her recent book Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination (Cambridge UP, 2021) explores the shared cultural logic of both legal opinions and novels during the Victorian era.

Her published articles have appeared in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Law and Literature, and in various edited collections. Leila will convene a workshop on the topic of interdisciplinarity

After receiving excellent applications and due to many requests, we have been able to secure a few additional slots for the OSI 2024. We are thus happy to announce that the deadline for applications has been extended for a short time until April 15th!

Head over to our Application page for more info!

Since 2009, the OSI has successfully encouraged and promoted the interdisciplinary study and research of the interrelations between law and culture, based on the idea that the extended cultural study of the law will foster profitable scholarly exchange and dialogue between legal studies and the humanities. We are committed more than ever to build on and continue these efforts, especially in the face of the current challenges to democratic and open societies.

The Institute will offer a combination of thematic workshop sessions, small group seminars and a final conference for up to 20 international participants (doctoral, post-doctoral and advanced M.A. – see below for eligibility). The introductory workshop will address the range and potential of interdisciplinary studies and approaches in the field of law and the humanities. The remaining thematic sessions and small group seminars will focus on key issues and debates in current cultural legal studies which touch on questions of rights in general, legal personhood, citizenship etc

The main objective of the OSI is to encourage scholarly exchange across disciplines and the critical debate of current research projects as well as work in progress. Participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss their own work both within the larger group and in individual sessions with members of the OSI faculty. The program will be concluded with a two day conference on the topic of the institute with invited speakers and panel sessions.