Feminist Perspectives on Law and Literature

The interdisciplinary study of law and literature can help us better understand intersectionality, and vice versa: intersectional feminist perspectives are extremely valuable in the study of law and literature. Of course, neither feminist nor intersectional approaches are new in and of themselves: for decades, literary scholarship has studied the impact of particular constellations of gender, race, and class when it comes to representations of women in literary texts and has succeeded in shaking monolithic and stereotypical notions of womanhood. However, research at the intersection of law, literature and feminism has so far been limited and insular. Bringing together more than twenty international researchers from related disciplines, this volume is the first to bring questions of intersectional feminism to the forefront of law and literature scholarship. From reproductive and (trans-)gender justice in law and literature to feminist practices that intervene in judicial discourse, this volume brings into focus a wide range of cultural and legal phenomena in which gender and the law intersect in literary texts. The volume’s commitment to intersectionality fittingly extents to its very make up: the contributors were selected to represent a diverse range of positions in terms of their gender, career stage and nationality.

Hanna Luise Kroll, CRC ’Law and Literature’, University of Münster, Germany; Laura Schmitz-Justen, CRC ’Law and Literature’, University of Münster, Germany; Laura Wittmann, CRC ’Law and Literature’, University of Münster, Germany; Dr. Laura Zander, CRC ’Law and Literature’, University of Münster, Germany.