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Writing Rights: Approaching Justice in Literature

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: 22/105

Zeiten: Di. 10:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: The question of justice looms large in literature and literary works concerned with justice form a central tradition in the larger canon of what we have come to inherit, for good or bad, as the western canon of literature. Ranging from Greek classics in drama and the epos to Shakespeare, Beecher-Stowe, Kafka, Camus, Wright and Baldwin to our own contemporary fields of activist and minority literature, the precarious and fragile concept and reality of justice has been and still is one of the strongest driving forces for the literary imagination and the intervention of literature in public and legal discourses about rights, law, and the experience of injustice.
This course offers an open forum for the discussion of the role imaginative literature may claim or fulfil within larger debates about justice and injustice. It does so with the purpose to make us aware of the way in which literary works contribute to the general discussion about justice. While literature does not have an immediate impact on structures and conditions which are unjust, and thus cannot offer means for corrective political and legal action, literary fiction rather offers a mode of reflective and critcal thinking, even a mode of imagining different modes and modalities of 'justice. In this way, poetical justice may be more than just a compensatory mode of virtual remedy for real injustice.
Whether this fictional mode of thinking and imagining justice will have any effect depends on our ways of reading them and, more importantly, the way in which literature resonates with our own ideas (convictions and opinions) about what is just, legitimate, and ethically commensurable.
The course will tackle this questions and challenges with the help of some basic commentary in justice and literature, but mainly through the continuous engagement with two primary texts:
Nathanial Hawthorne "The Scarlet Letter" (1851)
Valeria Luiselli "The Lost Children Archive" (2019)
While the historical distance between the two works may appear daunting for any attempt to draw direct connections, what should be obvious is their shared sense of the failures of the American notion of justice (famously as "justice for all") to be delivered and realized.
A more detailed schedule for sessions and tasks will be handed out and discussed at the beginning of the seminar.
For requirements and conditions in regard to grades and credit points, please consult the module description of your program. Do not hesitate to contact me about questions in this matter.
For the literature, please try to obtain physical copies of the two books (you will have time to read all of it during the course time), for instance, on Amazon:

Scarlet Letter:
https://www.amazon.de/Scarlet-Letter-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199537801/ref=sr_1_5?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3GMUQ45EEVFN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.POw6E7_I8iAuuV1M1lVGwScY3PCOCgsb6BAldEdyu8PdHZlRIuJ8368lWeJkwOLhQBb9WB1_R15C7pcNgsLtfWRGR_05UfX-OI2OVILODOQV0Etq_CgfMbOPn08lWalX5MP-rvtkC6hKTFJMeOPZPJSE7XbC_yQUyT6HkU05-lmOZYiyO_mkTqr56g8hlcS8biMsCIKkQ1x4WS0tAEqvkPpAMnzN_FM8dmueQYkLctg.dTxDf9F53iXLq1EbSuHjZZ0mPK0hRujzKf9SHhUUpcw&dib_tag=se&keywords=Scarlet+Letter&qid=1759400826&sprefix=scarlet+letter%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-5

Lost Childen Archive
https://www.amazon.de/Lost-Children-Archive-novel-English-ebook/dp/B07D23HK9F/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iwPS1StP68VAwMbtHczVvjMwotG0XCk0pNnOrdvZ4y9nI3iXI1hENjYN1QhJI1lmW4pkJ3uMtFV1vDT3mA-yJ5rbKMwVproj1K82hmcwlanxG8no7s9mzVoKtnoX1lxXSW3eDWWoNub2HDmBQHBdjrkuXoKgukmCwLJkE72yWhc0_TmdJqQxVDEdxPIcoADC07QYohysfX3ottCJuoskZXl4t6uFIUr8ts5f4T9A2hw.lszmt3b9LnXcArhFfTadmRsirCu4KVnlondvNFMV0aA&dib_tag=se&keywords=Lost+Children+Archive&qid=1759780255&sr=8-1

Regular attendance and active involvement in class discussions is expected and encouraged for supporting the development and final achievement within the context of the course.

Thanks and looking forward to working with you!